{"id":7545,"date":"2014-01-04T04:16:36","date_gmt":"2014-01-04T09:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=7545"},"modified":"2014-01-04T04:19:05","modified_gmt":"2014-01-04T09:19:05","slug":"the-shocking-redistribution-of-wealth-in-the-past-five-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=7545","title":{"rendered":"The Shocking Redistribution of Wealth in the Past Five Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone reviewing the data is likely to conclude that there must be some mistake. It doesn’t seem possible that one out of twenty American families could each have made a million dollars since Obama became President, while the average American family’s net worth has barely recovered. But the evidence comes from numerous reputable sources.<\/p>\n

Some conservatives continue to claim that President Obama is unfriendly to business<\/a>, but the facts show that the richest Americans and the biggest businesses have been the main – perhaps only<\/em> – beneficiaries of the massive wealth gain over the past five years.<\/p>\n

1. $5 Million to Each of the 1%, and $1 Million to Each of the Next 4%<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the end of 2008 to the middle of 2013 total U.S. wealth increased<\/a> from $47 trillion to $72 trillion. About $16 trillion of that is financial gain (stocks and other financial instruments).<\/p>\n

The richest 1% own about 38 percent<\/a> of stocks, and half of non-stock financial assets. So they’ve gained at least $6.1 trillion (38 percent of $16 trillion). That’s over $5 million for each of 1.2 million households.<\/p>\n

The next richest 4%, based on similar calculations<\/a>, gained about $5.1 trillion. That’s over a million dollars for each of their 4.8 million households.<\/p>\n

The least wealthy 90% in our country own only 11 percent<\/a> of all stocks excluding pensions (which are fast disappearing). The frantic recent surge in the stock market has largely bypassed these families.<\/p>\n

2. Evidence of Our Growing Wealth Inequality<\/strong><\/p>\n

This first fact is nearly ungraspable: In 2009 the average wealth for almost half of American families was ZERO<\/a> (their debt exceeded their assets).<\/p>\n

In 1983 the families in America’s poorer half owned an average of about $15,000<\/a>. But from 1983 to 1989 median wealth<\/a> fell from over $70,000 to about $60,000<\/a>. From 1998 to 2009, fully 80% of American families LOST wealth<\/a>. They had to borrow to stay afloat.<\/p>\n

It seems the disparity couldn’t get much worse, but after the recession it did. According to a Pew Research Center<\/a> study, in the first two years of recovery the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%. And then, from 2011 to 2013, the stock market grew by almost 50 percent<\/a>, with again the great majority of that gain going to the richest 5%.<\/p>\n

Today our wealth gap is worse than that of the third world. Out of all developed and undeveloped countries with at least a quarter-million adults, the U.S. has the 4th-highest degree of wealth inequality<\/a> in the world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon.<\/p>\n

3. Congress’ Solution: Take from the Poor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Congress has responded by cutting unemployment benefits<\/a> and food stamps<\/a>, along with other ‘sequester’ targets like Meals on Wheels for seniors and Head Start for preschoolers. The more the super-rich make, the more they seem to believe in the cruel fantasy that the poor are to blame for their own struggles.<\/p>\n

President Obama recently proclaimed<\/a> that inequality “drives everything I do in this office.” Indeed it may, but in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

\n

The above article was first published at the website Common Dreams<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of “American Wars: Illusions and Realities<\/a>” (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone reviewing the data is likely to conclude that there must be some mistake. It doesn’t seem possible that one out of twenty American families could each have made a million dollars since Obama became President, while the average American family’s net worth has barely recovered. But the evidence comes from numerous reputable sources. Some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-column"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7545"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7547,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7545\/revisions\/7547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}