This morning there was a headline and description on the AOL web site that said:
Rich are Getting Richer and... That's Fine?
About 85% of US wealth is held by the
top 20% of the country, but new study
says that's OK with most Americans.
That's OK? Really? I clicked on the link, which went to an AOL Daily Finance article about an academic study on income inequality. The point of the study? The rich are getting richer and most Americans are NOT OK with that.
So AOL completely misrepresents their own story. But that aside, the study is worth a look...
The key facts of the study by Harvard's Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely of Duke University are as follows:
Current American wealth distribution is as follows (this is assets, not income, which is also quite skewed):
Top 20% of Americans own 85% of wealth. (And we know how concentrated even that is at the top.)
Next 20% of Americans own 11% of wealth.
Middle 20% of Americans own 4% of wealth.
Bottom 40% of Americans own 0.3% of wealth.
What Americans BELIEVE the wealth distribution looks like is as follows:
Americans think the top 20% own 58% of wealth.
Americans think the next 20% own 20% of wealth.
Americans think the midde 20% own 13% of wealth.
Americans think the bottom 40% own 9% of wealth (actually thirty times what the lower class and poor own).
What Kerry voters think income distribution OUGHT to be:
The top 20% should own 30% of the wealth.
The bottom 20% should own 12% of the wealth.
What Bush voters think income distribution OUGHT to be:
The top 20% should own 35% of the wealth.
The bottom 20% should own 9% of the wealth.
Predictably, Republicans want more wealth in the hands of the wealthy than Democrats do. But here's the amazing thing: not only do Americans think wealth is much more fairly distributed than it really is, even Republicans would like a far more even distribution than what they think is the case now.
Both Republicans and Democrats are far, far closer to each other than they are to the highly skewed wealth distribution that prevails in America. These facts need to be known! Income and wealth inequality are far greater than most people think, and even Republicans want a more fair economic distribution than what we have now. Of course, the Republican Party is largely owned by the wealthy and corporate interests, so when they are in power they do everything possible to make income inequality worse. But this is not what the overwhelming majority of Americans want!
Of course, it doesn't help when the corporate media misrepresent reality, even to the point of AOL misrepresenting the main point of their own article.