Code

By John Ellis
Published on Medium, January 21, 2023

This “piece” ran in Political Items on Saturday, 21 January. Pieces like this are part of what Political Items offers. You can subscribe to Political Items by clicking here. The first 14 days are free. Unsubscribe any time. You can share this piece by clicking on the “button” below.

“Inequality” is a fact of modern life. A (relatively) small number of people own a great deal of the world’s wealth. According to the World Inequality Report (coordinated by Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, et alia), 50 percent of the world’s population own 2% of the world’s wealth. Ten percent of the world’s population owns 75% of the world’s wealth.

In the United States, in the second quarter of 2022, 68 percent of the nation’s wealth was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. The lowest 50 percent of earners owned 3.2 percent of the total wealth.