Originally posted by powderblueboy
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One brutal sentence sums up the dismal state of wealth disparity in the US.
"The bottom half of Americans combined have a negative net worth," Ben Steverman wrote in a recent Bloomberg article.
This statement is based on the research of the economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who study wealth inequality. Zucman is a "wealth detective" who spends hours combing through spreadsheets of tax tables, macroeconomic datasets, and international money-flow calculations to find the secret money stashes of the richest people.
Saez and Zucman's research on wealth inequality also found that 20% of American wealth is controlled by the top 0.1% of taxpayers — or about 170,000 families. The top 1% controls about 39% of the country's wealth, and the bottom 90% holds only 26%, despite years of economic growth in the US overall.
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