I hate when these sorts of statistics point to “the top 10%” as the problem based on numbers like this. It’s simply much less broad than that. Of all wealth, the top 0.1% holds 14.5%. The next 0.9% holds 17.3%. The bottom 50% hold only 2.5%. The top 1% of households hold 12.72x as much wealth as the bottom 50%. And, notably, the bottom 10% of households have less than $1000 in net worth. The bottom 8% of people have $0 or less.
A household which is at the 90th percentile for Net Worth has a net worth of roughly $2,000,000, including equity in their home. You get to the 95th percentile before you double that to $4M. The 90th percentile has 1000x higher net worth than someone with $2,000 to their name, which seems obscenely unfair when described in that way. However, a net worth of $2,000,000 would provide a retiree a mostly-safe withdrawal rate (4% or $80,000) of around the median income of ~$84,000. (This doesn’t actually check out since it includes equity in the home, but as a simplification.) Retirees have access to social security and tax-advantaged accounts and the like, but someone who ends up with a net worth of $2M could live only a median lifestyle without working.
Is a net worth of $2,000,000 a very large number and a large chunk of wealth? Of course it is. But it’s not like, obscene wealth. If I gave a random American $2M it would change their lives profoundly, but the people who have a net worth of $2M aren’t the ones who are ruining our lives. They’re just not.
The top 0.1% hold 14.5% of the wealth. The top 1% hold 31.8%. The bottom 10% hold less than 0%. That’s the ball game.
Disclaimer: I have not rigorously cited my sources, nor verified all my figuring. However, most of this is pulled from the Fed data linked in the article. Other stuff is pulled from sources which cite the same, though I’ve not run a rigorous analysis of the maths. My work should not be cited as correct, it is intended to be illustrative. That said, I’ll happily remedy any errors that others might notice!
this comment should be a mandatory copypasta for such articles
a net worth of $2,000,000 would provide a retiree a mostly-safe withdrawal rate (4% or $80,000) of around the median income of ~$84,000.
If inflation and dollar devaluation eats away faster than investment growth they may find themselves just scraping by.
The ‘mostly safe 4% rule’ actually includes inflation. It’s based on the assumption that assets are invested in a mix of broad stock market and treasury bonds, and allows the retireee to increase their annual spending by inflation, It usually results in the retiree dying with substantially more wealth (inflation adjusted) than they started out with. The stock market is a natural inflation hedge and, in this day of multinational conglomerates, a currency hedge.
For those curious as to additional reading, the origin of the 4% rule comes from the Trinity Study, a finance research project from the late 90s.
Not to be confused with the Trinity Test, which occurred in the 40s and had very little to do with finance.
cam to say 9% of that 10% is reliant on the 90% doing better so it keeps shrinking. Its insane when you look at the top wealthiest individuals just to see the jumps from the first few. Its why musk keeps staying on top even with stupid moves. the others have to make so much to get to where he is if he does not grow at all. That is the problem with wealth equality. Its not just rich and poor its about the general hollowing out of the middle. When I was young being doctor meant a real nice life but for many gp’s its like they can get what a typical middle class was like. they have a nice house and can have a car or two and actually put away from retirement but having a vacation home and those cars being new luxury cars is not a given. The new middle class is like yesterday upper middle class while the middle class and working class form back then are trying to just stay above water now.
(1) clickbait title gonna clickbait
(2) They are not aiming to convey facts - which we’ve known for several decades, like the wealthy have all of the um, ah, wealth - and rather to convey an emotional punchline. So just one sentence phrase, without any compound portions.
(3) I do not know about this source in particular but in general all news media is owned by oligarchs, and presumably the author felt that a story talking about the top 0.1% would not be published, so they misrepresented the situation in order to make it more tolerable. This serves the oligarchy by redirecting anger away from billionaires that you will never see, to the local millionaires in <insert your local area name here>, or even to Taylor Swift that you will see in entertainment. Meanwhile, people like The Musk still control the outcome of the Russian vs. Ukrainian genocidal war… but sure, show a picture of Taylor Swift as if that is remotely comparable as the literal “face of this issue”.
But but they Create Jobs!
Why they gotta put taytay front and centre ?
There’s heaps of other actually shitty wealthy people they could have put up there :|
No one can earn a billion dollars without exploiting others.
Not a single goddamn person.
Does she have a fashion brand like Rihanna does? How the hell is she exploiting others by just bring a singer? I don’t like her at all and find both her fans and haters cringe but I find this take weird.
Same for Jowling Kowling Rowling. She’s a TERF cunt but she was also a writer once upon a time and made billions from movies and other things based on her books.
Earning that kind of wealth is not necessarily the problem. I think it is possible to accumulate it without exploiting anyone.
Keeping it, on the other hand, is a problem. Wealth carries obligations and to maintain that level of wealth requires a person to, at the minimum, remain apathetic to a lot of serious problems which they have the capacity to address.
How did Taytay exploit anyone? She sings and dances in front of people for a living
the crew that set up her stages/audio etc.
you don’t make billions by paying people their fair share
Multiple reports confirmed that Swift distributed $197 million in bonuses to the people who worked on the tour, in addition to their regular pay. That total included a wide range of roles, from dancers and musicians to production crews and support staff.
I guess we’ve finally found the first good billionaire then /s
Because she wakes up every morning and chooses to not solve homelessness. She could do it. Easily.
edit: since im getting downvoted had no idea you were serious
firstly how is her not solving any number of endless issues exploiting someone?
secondly trillion dollar economies can’t solve homelessness, what dumb greenleft weekly article did you read that made you think she could?
trillion dollar economies can’t solve homelessness,
They obviously could, they just won’t, and people like you accept their excuses and even defend them, like you are doing now.
There is more than enough excess money in this country that we could easily give every single American citizen $1 million dollars. Sure, a lot of them would blow through it in 48 hours, but it would transform countless lives for the better, and supercharge the Economy like nothing in history.
But that would come at a loss of Control, and when you already have more money than you know what to do with, you start coveting things like power instead. They wouldn’t miss the money, but they would miss the power of keeping people working at slave wages because they need the health care so badly. They don’t want people paying off their bills, retiring early, starting a (competing) business, etc. They want these people scared of losing their jobs and going hungry or homeless, so they keep working and accept whatever bullshit is shoveled at them.
There is more than enough excess money in this country that we could easily give every single American citizen $1 million dollars.
your could easily yes but this would also be silly (and not solve homelessness), you want to look up the neutrality of money
eg. if everyone got a million dollar’s inflation would explode, milk would inflate up to cost $5000 and you would be back to square one
you already got a minor taste of it during covid and voted in the current american president because it hurt so much apparently, i don’t know anyone seriously suggesting to ‘helicopter drop’ (see milton friedmens thought experiment) $1 million to everyone to solve homelessness
Speculation, but possible, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We could easily institute regulations that would punish price gouging. You can’t do it after a natural disaster, and you can’t do it here. If you are caught raising your prices more than 5%, and you don’t have corroborating evidence of your higher costs (supplier invoices, etc), then you’re going to jail. Most businesses will comply with the law, and those that won’t will stick out, and will be forced to go back to normal pricing.
And Covid is NOT your argument. The economy was supposed to crash during Covid, but it actually weathered it well, and some business actually thrived, like the delivery business. Door Dash, Instacart, etc. were all struggling, but they boomed during Covid, as many people used them for the first time. Amazon boomed, and other retailers like Walmart and Target, who had been trying to compete with Amazon, suddenly had plenty of new customers.
My mother lives in one of those active adult, 55+ communities, which are exactly the kind of places that don’t like to use the new-fangled Internet doohickeys. But they all jumped on the delivery services, which they NEVER would have considered before, and they are still using them. They also got into mail-order like never before, and there is an army of delivery trucks weaving through the neighborhood all day.
The economy boomed during Covid, and even IMPROVED for some sectors, demonstrating that UBI can work, and giving money directly to consumers who will spend it, is much more stimulative to the economy than giving another massive tax break to a Sociopathic Oligarch.
Or we can continue with the mantra of the wealthy: Don’t give it to the poor, the poor get all the breaks, it’s not fair to us. Besides, they’ll just spend it on petty stuff, like food and rent, instead of investing it wisely. Better to give it to the wealthy, who will handle the money responsibly, and not just spend it wildly.
Appreciate that you put effort into the post as most of the posts here are snarky one liners, I can’t respond to it all so ultimately we’re just going to have to agree to disagree
If you are caught raising your prices more than 5%, and you don’t have corroborating evidence of your higher costs (supplier invoices, etc), then you’re going to jail.
This doesn’t make sense, costs for everything go up, everyone’s throwing cash about, remember the farmer who milks the cow now has a million dollars, he now wants to buy a house/car/all the things he couldn’t afford before, demand goes up, there’s the same amount of supply = price goes up, lambo’s cost 250k? when 20 million people order them, not enough supply, the price goes up to 2 million, this is basically the whole reason we had worldwide inflation after covid, whole lotta stimulus, not enough supply
The economy boomed during Covid
Yes and no, as you said some areas boomed however the after effects hurt a lot apparently:
Trump won voters who prioritized economy and immigration
https://abcnews.com/538/voters-chose-trump/story?id=115827243
and even IMPROVED for some sectors, demonstrating that UBI can work
Giving the poorest a temporary increase in money != UBI
Or we can continue with the mantra of the wealthy: Don’t give it to the poor, the poor get all the breaks
The poor get plenty of money across Europe and everywhere else not America
I think half the time I have to adjust my view because I’m not American
Anyway good post, last one from me
All I have to say is that of course prices are constantly increasing, but a 200% increase following something like a large distribution of money, would be an obvious red flag for gouging.
The point is that regulating the situation would keep most retailers in line, and the price gougers couldn’t get away with it on a massive scale. That’s what happened to college tuitions when the government made it easy to get college loans, but didn’t regulate the cost of tuitions. So colleges cranked up their prices to force young people to take on a lifetime of debt as the price of admission to the POSSIBILITY of getting a decently paying job.
Now we have a growing economic time bomb in annually growing student debt that will eventually crash the economy, as people will no longer be able to afford literally ANYTHING they require for basic living, like a home or a car, or even food.
Lol…no…no we could not give every American 1mil and be fine…who taught you math, as they either sucked at teaching or you didn’t pay attention.
Really strong argument there. Thanks for contributing.
Well, I guess she is one of the most famous billionaires around? Also, so many things, like an army is fans willing to engage in this type of conversations, publicity, etc.
How is this figure over time?
From @ava@piefed.blahaj.zone source, the 10%/90% ratio went from 1.55 in 1989 to 2.14 in 2025.
Consistent with their criticism of choosing the top 10% vs the top 1-or-fewer %, the 1%/99% ratio went from 30% to 46%. The 1%/90% ratio went from 58% to 99, and the (10-1)%/90% from 97% to 114%.
ed: Initially did this without noticing that the default view of the Fed data only showed 2010-2025. Over that range, the (10-1)% have actually lost wealth to the 1%. Over the 1989-2025 window, the (10-1)% have gained, but not nearly the pace of the 1%
Thank you
The article links the source data from the FED, which has data since 1989
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#quarter:144;series:Net worth;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7,9;units:levels
