The Top 1 Percent Owns Nearly Everything in the US. We Need to Seize Their Wealth.
Capitalism systemically concentrates wealth at the top of society, as the latest US figures confirm yet again. The solution: massive wealth redistribution that attacks disparities across the board.
In 2019, families with net worths exceeding $1 million owned 79.2 percent of all the household wealth in the country. (Eugene Chystiakov / Unsplash)
Last week, the Federal Reserve released the latest version of the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the premiere source of information on the distribution of household wealth in the United States. The new SCF data confirms much of what we already know about who owns America — but it also helps dispel some common misconceptions about demographic disparities in wealth holdings.
Millionaires and Billionaires Own Almost Everything
In 2019, families with net worths exceeding $1 million owned 79.2 percent of all the household wealth in the country. The bottom half of American families held just 1.5 percent of the wealth.
While astronomical, this level of inequality should come as no surprise. Capitalist economies contain feedback loops that tend to accumulate wealth in the hands of a small number of families at the top of society.
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