I wonder what the complete curve looks like. At some point I'd expect the wealth number to be zero (and then head negative). So if you had $1 to your name, you might be richer than the bottom 20% combined.
It's a survey, but according to GOBanking 69% of Americans do not have even a thousand dollars in savings[1] (Almost half of respondents — 45% — said they have $0 in a savings account. Another 24% said they have less than $1,000 in savings. From 829 random respondents)
The Fed site has a lot of charts for this. For example, top 1% of households owns 30% of wealth today, while the bottom 50% - only 2%. For liabilities, the chart is almost the reverse of this: top 1% owes 4%, while the bottom 50% owes 30%.
There must be a similar chart for individuals somewhere.
Edit: Btw, in 2010, the bottom 50% owned the least share of wealth - only 0.4%. This is also when the Fed started to increase the M1 money supply at the rate never seen before.
It's hard to read a figure like this without instinctively attaching a biased narrative value to it. Whether you see it as a positive or negative. Is it just me? Or perhaps that's the point?
Newspapers and media in general don't get read for their factual information, they get read/consumed for how they make you feel. This is excellent stuff - it makes rich people feel superior, poor people feel bad and people in the middle feel uneasy. Everyone gets an emotion from one headline, effective click generator this one!
Whether or not it's good for society longterm to have journalists publish 'your neighbour makes more money than you, your neighbour is better looking than you, your neighbour is smarter than you' is another matter. I think we all know the answer, and yet there isn't some benevolent billionaire who cares enough to fund his/her own media organization and ban this type of content on their platform.
According to the 20/80 rule, in a given group, the top 20% are responsible for 80% of whatever factor you’re studying, good or bad.
The classic example is in a sales group. The top 20% of salesmen bring in 80% of the business.
In customer support, the top 20% of customers take up 80% of a company’s time.
According to this article, the total wealth in this country is 112 trillion. If you applied the 20/80 rule to this figure, and then keep applying the 20/80 rule until you have 1% remaining, then the “natural” outcome should be that the top 1% control over 70 trillion in wealth. That’s twice as high as what we actually have.
The 80/20 "rule" is not indicative what should be the right distribution. Also, wealth concentration has worsened over time. So, there was a time when it wasn't this concentrated and without a somewhat more equitable distribution we will see societal problems. The 80/20 rule is just a heuristic and not meant to be a guide for how things should actually be.
Exactly. Also you have to remember that some people are older than others. If everyone properly planned for their own retirement, then 65-year-olds would own >80% of all assets in the country, even if everyone had the same earnings for their entire life. Then over the rest of their life they would sell off those assets to pay for their daily expenses and travel while retired. The buyers would all be young people saving up for retirement.
Wealth inequality is the least surprising thing ever. But most people don't ever do math, so it makes for good clickbait.
I don't know why people keep bringing up the 20/80 rule as if it's some sort of cosmic law.
Suppose on some other planet with a civilization that evolved from something other than monkeys the "rule" is 100/100, meaning everyone contributes equally.
On that planet I guess you'd be arguing that there's something wrong with the world considering that the Top% of Borg Households Hold 15 times more wealth than the bottom 50%, but everything is supposed to follow the "100/100 rule."
Combined bet worth are not indicator of unbalance in wealth ( i mean in quality of living and generally living easiness).. those kind of metrics are misleading when presented this way imho.. let me explain :
Stock market now and meet worth to companies owner while they may benefit only marginally from those money..
If elon musk has net worth of 100b and for living use 1m\y is it different from a guy who earn 2m and use 2m\y to live ? Is musk worse for disparity of whealt ? And a man who earn 30k and use 10k to live ? Is him different from a guy who earn 10k and use 10k to live ? Yeah the first ok one may have more cash if something goes bad.. but theyr lifestyle may be the same ... I think that the difference should be calculated on what we spend not in net worth ... if I have 1 trilion$ and spend 0 and live like a homeless because I don't wond to spend those money but maybe because I don't need or can spend ..why should I been considered as society monster from those kind of statistics ?
Net worth over certain threshold is non sense imo , someone who own a company may be calculated was total company value net worth but probably have a quote normal life and his net worth is in the market\street creating jobs, plus having a 1m earning and 1m spending i could have net worth 0 , but i would me different from who have 300$ income year
An ultra rich doesn't abuse society until he spend his money for things useless to the society imho.. that's what should be tracked. How much wealth is wasted for a golden toilet .. not accumulated
I get confused, when I read the term "society monster", as I think it's a loaded term, that is not reflective of the language used in the article
Arguing for more wealth equality is not the same as saying "billionaires are monsters", but having a few people able to fund lobbying and influence political systems, simply because of their wealth, while a large part of the population are cut off from participating in the democratic process, because they do not have the resources for education and the stability to commit long-term to a cause, is in my opinion a death sentence to modern democracy
Plus there should be other things factored in .. like the contribution to the society.. is worse a man with a net wealth of 1m which is an illegal drug leader than a 100m entrepreneur in a solar energy sector.. stats saying just a number like that may depict a worsening scenario while instead maybe is getting better.. incomplete view must always be taken with skepticism imo
[+] [-] flubert|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drannex|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/savings-advice/a...
[+] [-] gbh444g|5 years ago|reply
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...
There must be a similar chart for individuals somewhere.
Edit: Btw, in 2010, the bottom 50% owned the least share of wealth - only 0.4%. This is also when the Fed started to increase the M1 money supply at the rate never seen before.
[+] [-] terse_malvolio|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexashka|5 years ago|reply
Newspapers and media in general don't get read for their factual information, they get read/consumed for how they make you feel. This is excellent stuff - it makes rich people feel superior, poor people feel bad and people in the middle feel uneasy. Everyone gets an emotion from one headline, effective click generator this one!
Whether or not it's good for society longterm to have journalists publish 'your neighbour makes more money than you, your neighbour is better looking than you, your neighbour is smarter than you' is another matter. I think we all know the answer, and yet there isn't some benevolent billionaire who cares enough to fund his/her own media organization and ban this type of content on their platform.
[+] [-] ChrisLTD|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tracer4201|5 years ago|reply
Does it really matter if we instinctively attach a positive or negative bias to a piece of information?
[+] [-] sixQuarks|5 years ago|reply
The classic example is in a sales group. The top 20% of salesmen bring in 80% of the business.
In customer support, the top 20% of customers take up 80% of a company’s time.
According to this article, the total wealth in this country is 112 trillion. If you applied the 20/80 rule to this figure, and then keep applying the 20/80 rule until you have 1% remaining, then the “natural” outcome should be that the top 1% control over 70 trillion in wealth. That’s twice as high as what we actually have.
[+] [-] sanp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] db48x|5 years ago|reply
Wealth inequality is the least surprising thing ever. But most people don't ever do math, so it makes for good clickbait.
[+] [-] newfeatureok|5 years ago|reply
Suppose on some other planet with a civilization that evolved from something other than monkeys the "rule" is 100/100, meaning everyone contributes equally.
On that planet I guess you'd be arguing that there's something wrong with the world considering that the Top% of Borg Households Hold 15 times more wealth than the bottom 50%, but everything is supposed to follow the "100/100 rule."
[+] [-] zalkota|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kfrncs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blacksqr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fvv|5 years ago|reply
Net worth over certain threshold is non sense imo , someone who own a company may be calculated was total company value net worth but probably have a quote normal life and his net worth is in the market\street creating jobs, plus having a 1m earning and 1m spending i could have net worth 0 , but i would me different from who have 300$ income year
An ultra rich doesn't abuse society until he spend his money for things useless to the society imho.. that's what should be tracked. How much wealth is wasted for a golden toilet .. not accumulated
[+] [-] Scandiravian|5 years ago|reply
Arguing for more wealth equality is not the same as saying "billionaires are monsters", but having a few people able to fund lobbying and influence political systems, simply because of their wealth, while a large part of the population are cut off from participating in the democratic process, because they do not have the resources for education and the stability to commit long-term to a cause, is in my opinion a death sentence to modern democracy
[+] [-] fvv|5 years ago|reply