orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (03/24/86)
In answer to Clayton's inquiry: > From Clayton Cramer: > Concerning who controls wealth in this country: I've seen this claim made > before (95% of the wealth is controlled by 5% of the people). I suspect > that by some rather limited measure of wealth (perhaps liquid assets), > this is correct -- but by a broader measure of wealth, this sounds highly > suspect. I recall from taking economics that about 60-70% of the national > income is wages and salaries -- how many weeks pay would it take for us > "wage slaves" to buy up all the stock sold on the NYSE? Short enough that > we could probably have a socialist revolution (if that's what anyone wanted) > before the MasterCard bills came in. > > If you include the much less liquid, but still useful wealth of real > estate, you'll find that a lot of wealth in this country is pretty evenly > distributed. Over half the people in this country live in a house that > either they or their family own -- and at least some of the rest rent > by choice. I read some years ago an estimate that the total value of > residential housing in this country was in excess of 2x10^9 dollars. > If half of that is owner-occupied, that means 60% of the population owns > a trillion dollars worth of real estate. Suddenly it doesn't sound so > inequitable. > Here are the facts from Thomas Edsall's, "The New Politics of Inequality": (p. 222), his source, Statistical Abstract of the US: TOTAL Top 1% Top 0.5% Percent Top 1% Percent Top 0.5% ----- ------- --------- -------------- ---------------- Total wealth $4,344 $1,047 $822 24.1% 18.9% Real Estate 1,493 225 151 15.1 10.1 Corp Stock 871 491 429 56.5 49.3 Bonds 158 95 83 60.0 52.2 Cash & Savings 749 101 64 13.5 8.5 Mortgages 78 41 30 52.7 39.1 Life Insurance 143 10 6 7.0 4.3 Trusts 99 89 81 90.0 81.0 Miscellaneous 854 83 60 9.8 6.8 Also I would like to correct my statement that a majority of children were in poverty. That statement is wrong. I was confusing this with the statement that out of those in poverty a majority are children. In fact about a quarter of the nation's children are in poverty. That amount represents about 40% of all those in poverty. No doubt my detractors will clamor at this admission of a rather stupid confusion on my part. My only defense is that I am willing to admit when I have made a factual error. tim sevener whuxn!orb