US Inequality

1.) The total wealth of the members of Forbes 400 wealthiest individuals in the United States adds up to a record $2.34 trillion, more than the GDP of India, a nation of over a billion people.  All 400 of these people have fortunes that are worth at least $1.7 billion.

2.) An estimated 115,000 U.S. households (the top one-thousandth of America’s population) owns more than 20 percent of U.S. household wealth, up from 7 percent in 1970.

3.) The wealthiest 400 people in the United States have more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the U.S. population which is comprised of 70 million households or 194 million people.

4.) The wealthiest 20 people in the United States have as much wealth as 152 million people who live in the 57 million households that make up the bottom half of the United States population.  These people include the following:

Their combined wealth totals $732 billion.  It is interesting to see that six of the top twenty are in the tech sector and nine have inherited their wealth from the previous generation.

5.) A typical U.S. household has $81,000 in total wealth.  The Forbes 400 have more wealth than 36 million American households, equal to the number of households that own cats!

6.) The Forbes 400 have as much wealth as all of America’s African-American households plus one-third of America’s Latino population combined.  The wealthiest 100 members of the Forbes 400 have as much wealth as the entire African-American population of 42 million people.  The wealthiest 186 members of the Forbes 400 have as much wealth as the entire Latino population of over 55 million people.

7.) African-Americans make up 13.2 percent of the United States population but have only 2.5 percent of the nation’s total wealth.  Latinos make up 17 percent of the United States population but have only 2.9 percent of the nation’s total wealth.  Here is a table showing the inequality in wealth by race: