Thursday, August 07, 2008

Wealth Distribution Inequalities

Just an interesting here.

What I find most interesting about it is that, in 2006, earning over $350,000 puts you in the top 1% of earners in America while over $105,000 puts you in the top 5%. That means there is a buttload of people making well under that to round out the remaining 95%. What a huge discrepancy between wealth.

2 comments:

Clyde said...

Hmm...but why should wealth be equally shared? I'm not in favor of making the rich richer or keeping the poor poor, but in a society of capitalism, wealth wont and shouldn't be equally distributed.

Ryan said...

I'm not sure it has to be shared, but when you have policies that specifically aim to increase the gap between the rich and the poor, aren't you doing the exact opposite? That shouldn't be the case either.

I'm for bringing the gap closer to historic levels and reversing the policies that have allowed the gap to increase the way it has (tax cuts to primarily the top 1% over the past 8 years, raising the cap gains tax, raising the estate tax back to sane levels, etc). All that stuff has been rolled back and that chart shows the effect. It isn't because the rich have somehow become super productive or more worthy.