The Growing Wealth Gap in America over the last 10 Years
“[M]iddle class families went from owning 12% of wealth in 1990 to 7% in 2020,” according to an article and data published on March 22, 2021 and updated March 30, 2021, by USAFacts.org, a nonprofit organization that collects and presents statistics and data from the U.S. Government.
“While middle class wealth has grown 37% since the low of the Great Recession, adjusting for inflation, wealth for the top 1% of income earners has grown over three times as fast,” the data shows:
Even during the Pandemic, Billionaires’ wealth has soared 70%!
According to recently released Reports by the Institute for Policy Studies, Americans for Tax Fairness, and Inequality.org, U.S. Billionaire Wealth has skyrocketed by 70% during the COVID pandemic that has devastated ordinary families.
As stated in the Report issued by Americans for Tax Fairness on October 27, 2021, “Total U.S. billionaire wealth increased $2.1 trillion, or 70% during the pandemic—from March 18, 2020, to Oct. 15, 2021.” This has occurred “while the rest of the nation suffered through the 19 months of the pandemic.”
The report includes a state-by-state analysis based on Forbes billionaire data, showing “how the billionaires found in almost every state rank in the ‘billionaires bonanza’ they enjoyed while the rest of the nation suffered through the 19 months of the pandemic.”
Based on this data, the organization Inequality.org published a list of the Top 15 Billionaires in the U.S. showing their Percentage Wealth Growth during the 19 months of Pandemic from March 18, 2020 to October 15, 2021:
March 18, 2020 October 15, 2021 data: Forbes, “The World’s Real-Time Billionaires, Today’s Winners and Losers,” accessed October 15, 2021.
According to the Report issued by Inequality.org on October 18, 2021,
The great good fortune of these billionaires over the past 19 months is even starker when contrasted with the devastating impact of coronavirus on working people. Almost 89 million Americans have lost jobs, over 44.9 million have been sickened by the virus, and over 724,000 have died from it.”
Yet Billionaires & Corporations pay a Small and Decreasing Share of Taxes in the U.S.
“Most of these huge billionaires’ gains will go untaxed under current rules and will disappear entirely for tax purposes when they’re passed onto the next generation,” the Inequality.org Report states.
“On average, billionaires pay an effective federal income tax rate of about 8 percent when the increased value of their stock is counted, according to the White House. This is a lower rate than that paid by many middle-income taxpayers, including teachers, nurses, and firefighters,” the Report states.
Inequality.org further reports:
- Billionaires have paid no federal income taxes in some recent years, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, and George Soros.
- The country’s 25 top billionaires paid a tax rate of just 3.4 percent on a $400 billion increase in their collective fortune between 2014-18.”
In a later Report, Inequality.org highlights “a decades-long trend of corporations contributing a shrinking share of federal revenue.” “That share plummeted from 32.1 percent in 1952 to 6.6 percent in 2019,” as illustrated in the following graph provided by Inequality.org:
The Report notes, “Poll after poll shows that Americans of all political persuasions and by large majorities believe that the wealthy and big corporations need to start paying their fair share of taxes.”
