We have written before about the unevenness in opportunities and quality of life across America and the world. Most recently in our post on Environmental Health Disparities. But this is a problem with many overlapping causes.
One of the most visible causes of disparity is the wealth gap. Marketplace.org defines the wealth gap as, “The growing concentration of wealth in our country at the top, while those in the middle and at the bottom have lost ground.” A small group of extremely wealthy people control the vast majority of wealth in America.
According to a 2019 article by SmartAsset.com, “When the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released wealth data in 2013, the results showed total family wealth of $67 trillion. But that $67 trillion pie wasn’t split evenly. In fact, the top 10% of families held 76% of total wealth, according to CBO data. The top 10% starts with incomes of $942,000.”
To make it clearer, the top 10% holds nearly $50 trillion dollars. Or $50,000,000,000,000. And the lowest income of the top 10% is $942,000 a year.
SmartAsset goes on to say, “The rest of the top 50% percent of families claim a further 23% of the nation’s wealth. If you’re doing the math, you will have realized that leaves just 1% of the nation’s wealth for the bottom 50%. Those in the bottom quarter of households don’t just have zero wealth, they have negative net worth, with an average debt of $13,000.”
The top 10% of American families control almost fifty trillion dollars, while the bottom 25% are an average of thirteen thousand dollars in debt.
Numbers in the trillions, or even the billions can be hard to conceptualize. A billion dollars is equal to one thousand million dollars. And a trillion dollars is one thousand billion, or one million million dollars. To the average person, a million dollars seems like a lot, a hundred million dollars is a vast fortune, and a billion dollars is unimaginable. When we talk about the wealth gap, the numbers are very hard to conceptualize.
Since these numbers are so large and complex, the best way to understand them is to see them visually. Matt Korostoff has created a project called “1 Pixel Wealth” to illustrate the wealth gap, which has been translated into ten languages.
1 Pixel Wealth shows wealth to scale with 1 pixel worth of space representing $1,000. 1 Pixel Wealth gives a visual representation of the median US household income, a million dollars, a billion dollars, two hundred billion (the wealth of Jeff Bezos), and $3.5 trillion which is the money owned by the 100 wealthiest Americans.
As you scroll along, the page provides information about just how much money these bars illustrate. Each ten pixels across the screen equals $5 million. Describing the site does not give do justice and it is much clearer in the visual format. The page continues on, comparing the wealth of real people, providing a visual representation that makes it easy to see what Beyonce’s $400 million looks like in comparison to Jeff Bezos’ $200 billion.
When you finally reach the end of the representation of Jeff Bezos’ money, the site moves on into representing $3.5 trillion. Get comfortable, you’ll be scrolling a while. At this point you are only around an eighth of the way through. As you scroll on, the page provides additional graphs, representing the 400 people who hold all this money, and the bottom 60% of Americans. Noting that the 400 people controlling the funds would not even fill a full-sized airplane.
Continuing on, you are shown what could be accomplished with even just a small percentage of $3.5 trillion. Under 3%, 5%, 6%, 7%. What could be accomplished with just a third of the money. And finally what could be accomplished with 70% of $3.5 trillion. The top 400 richest Americans could afford to lose 70 percent of that money and still be billionaires.
1 Pixel Wealth is an invaluable tool in understanding the severity of the wealth disparity crisis. But the number one takeaway from this article and from the website, is that the current system of wealth disparity is unsustainable. Steps must be taken in order to lessen the gap between those who are unfathomably wealthy, and those who are living in poverty.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has recently introduced a bill at the federal level to create a 2% wealth tax for the richest Americans. The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act would create a tax on the wealth of Americans earning more than $50 million. This tax would rise to 3% for amounts over one billion. And 6% for fortunes over one billion dollars should legislation take effect to provide all Americans with comprehensive health care coverage.
It is an important element of working toward peace to educate yourself on topics of equality such as this. We encourage you to do your own research and to pay attention to bills addressing wealth inequality at both the state and federal levels.