Writing May 5, 2019 in The
Washington Post, economist Robert J. Samuelson explains how the gap between
rich and poor is getting worse in America. It's not about income... it's about
the incredible growing wealth disparity.
The $100
trillion question: What to do about wealth? and... what is the current
administration doing about the problem?
Summarizing
data from a recent Federal Reserve board study, Samuelson concludes: "The
study’s most striking feature is how gigantic the numbers are."
source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/robert-j-samuelson/?utm_term=.551849e3978d
The
distribution of wealth is highly skewed and getting worse:
"In
2018, the net worth of the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans represented 70
percent of household wealth, up from 61 percent in 1989, the study’s first
year. Even among this upper crust, wealth became more concentrated. Over the
same years, the share of the top 1 percent went from 24 percent to 31
percent."
"The
bottom 50 percent of U.S. households had virtually no net worth, the difference
between assets and liabilities, mainly loans. Their wealth share tumbled from 4
percent of total wealth in 1989 to 1 percent in 2018."
"The
big losers over the past 30 years could be termed the broad middle class: those
with wealth starting at the median (the midpoint of all wealth) and going to
the 90th percentile. Their share of household wealth, though still sizable, has
dropped from 35 percent in 1989 to 29 percent in 2018."
"The
truth is that we still don’t fully understand the surge in economic inequality
of the past three decades. The populist temptation is to blame greed, but this
is not a satisfactory explanation because greed is hardly new. It seems virtually certain that, sooner or later,
taxes on the well-to-do and wealthy will go up. That’s where the money is, and
that’s where the biggest private gains have been."
Maybe it is
time to revisit the recent tax reform legislation.
How did you
fare under the new income tax law?
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