The distribution of wealth in America is greatly skewed towards the top 20 percent of Americans. A new viral video shows how that wealth is distributed compared to how people THINK wealth is distributed.
As the viral video explains, the bottom 40 percent of American’s have barely any wealth. However, the top one percent of American’s have more wealth than American’s believe the entire top 20 percent currently controls.
The video explains that the poor and middle class only hold onto seven percent of the nation’s entire wealth. In the meantime, 50 percent of the nations stocks, bonds, and mutual funds are owned by the country’s wealthiest one percent.
As the video further explores wealth distribution, it notes that the average CEO now earns 380 times more money than the average employee. That data is not based on the lowest paid employee at the company but rather the average of all employees added together and divided by the number of workers at the company. The average worker needs to work for one month in order to make the same money the average CEO earns in just one hour.
While some viewers have been quick to attack the video creator for being a “socialist” or an idealist, his information was gathered from several prominent sources including Mother Jones , CNN , and Think Progress .
We have long known that wealth distribution in the United States skews largely in favor of the richest American’s; however, watch the video and you might be surprised to learn just how skewed that distribution of wealth has become.
If we take nothing else from this viral wealth distribution video, it may be that our view of financial reality in the United States is way off base.
Are you surprised to learn that so much of America’s wealth is distributed to such a small percentage of the actual population?