Nearly 80% of U.S. Household Wealth Owned By Millionaires & Billionaires: Federal Reserve Data

[appalachiablue]

Daily Kos, Sept. 28, 2020.

Kenny Stancil at Common Dreams writes—Analysis Shows Nearly 80% of US Household Wealth Owned by Millionaires and Billionaires:

In an analysis of 2019 government data released Monday, policy analyst and blogger Matt Bruenig found that last year, millionaires and billionaires owned 79.2% of all household wealth in the United States despite constituting just under 12% of the population.

Bruenig examined triennial data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, which was released Monday by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

While the share of wealth owned by households with net worths of $1 million or more decreased slightly between 2016 and 2019, it was still much higher than it was in 1989, the year the modern version of the survey began.

Thirty years ago, millionaires and billionaires owned 60.4% of all household wealth in the U.S.

"If we really want to tackle wealth inequality in this country," Bruenig wrote, "it is this wealth that we need to spread around."

Researchers at the People's Policy Project, where Bruenig is president, have proposed doing so through a social wealth fund. [...]

See Graphs,

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/28/1981558/-Monday-Night-Owls-Nearly-80-of-U-S-wealth-owned-by-millionaires-and-billionaires

Wealth Inequality, Wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States

[dweller]

1. EAT THE RICH

makes a great bumper sticker ...


✌🏼

[littlemissmartypants]

5. ❤ nt

[BigmanPigman]

2. Change the tax code to where it was in 1950!

The Dems had better so this when they are in control again. No reaching across the aisle on this or any of the BS they have shoveled on us. No "we take the high road" crap either. We must destroy the GOP once and for all.

[amerikat]

3. I worry about what the deconstucted GOP looks like.

Seems to me that we could get some of those lost souls on our side.
98% on the highest earners seems about right. Ask Bill Gates or Warren buffet and a few others.

[BigmanPigman]

4. I think you're right. There are some reasonable ones.

[Igel]

7. Didn't matter.

Ways are found around taxes that the population considers too high.

The US has incredible tax compliance rates. Other countries either require much greater social solidarity or much more stringent corralling of the population. As a % of GDP, taxes have been about the same since immediately post war. Every large change in the tax code perturbs the tax collection amounts for a year or two, whether the federal taxes increase or decrease, but then things settle back to about the same amount.

Note that back in the '50s almost everybody paid income tax. Now, it's a majority but not enough to overcome a cloture vote.

[Snarkoleptic]

6. This is why we can't have nice things.

Roads, bridges, high speed rail, upgraded schools, etc.