Distribution of wealth (Blog 9)

 

      The distribution of wealth ownership, as opposed to income inequality, is even more skewed towards the wealthy as the pie chart below shows.  The whole pie represents the total wealth in America.  Each of the five slices of the pie represent 20% of the US population according to how much wealth they own.  The slice of ownership for the poor and working poor are barely visible. Eighty-percent of all Americans own just 15.6% of America’s wealth. The number of people who slipped into poverty in 2010 was at an all time high of 46.2 million, so the poorest 20% of all Americans, in terms of wealth ownership, includes 15.5 million who are technically above the income poverty line. The poorest 40% of Americans essentially own almost nothing while the top 20% own almost 85% of everything.  As a result, favorable tax policies for capital gains income has a highly disproportional benefit for the wealthiest Americans. Capital income for this wealthy segment is what drives rising income inequality today.

       I believe this is a major problem in America today. If 20% of Americans own more than 80% of the wealth then that leaves a fraction of money to the rest of the people and those people often pay more taxes than the extremely rich do. I do not believe however that these people who have worked this hard to obtain this statute should not be forced to just give up there money, but I do believe that they should pay a slight bit more in taxes. Therefore it will help greater distribute the wealth throughout the country and possibly ease the burden on middle class and poorer families. This may not be a perfect system but something has to be done in the near future to help those who are struggling and as of right now I think this is the best way. Hopefully there will be changes made soon.