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There's a chart I saw recently [br]that I can't get out of my head.

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A Harvard business professor and economist

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asked more than 5,000 Americans

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how they thought wealth [br]was distributed in the United States.

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This is what they said [br]they thought it was:

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Dividing the country into [br]five rough groups

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of the top, bottom, and middle three [br]20 percent groups,

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they asked people how they thought [br]the wealth in this country was divided.

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Then he asked them what they [br]thought was the ideal distribution.

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And 92 percent, that's [br]at least nine out of 10 of them,

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said it should be more like this:

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In other words, more equitable [br]than they think it is.

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Now, that fact is telling, admittedly:[br]the notion that

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most Americans know that the [br]system is already skewed unfairly.

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But what's most interesting to me [br]is the reality compared to our perception.

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The ideal is as far removed from [br]our perception of reality

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as the actual distribution is from [br]what we think exists in this country.

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So, ignore the ideal for a moment.

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Here's what we think it is again,

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and here is the actual distribution.

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Shockingly skewed.

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Not only do the bottom [br]20 percent and the next 20 percent,

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the bottom 40 percent of [br]Americans barely have any of the wealth.

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I mean, it's hard to even [br]see them on the chart.

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But the top one percent has [br]more of the country's wealth than nine

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out of 10 Americans believe [br]the entire top 20 percent should have.

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Mind-blowing. [br]But let's look at it another way,

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because I find this chart kind of [br]difficult to wrap my head around.

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Instead, let's reduce the [br]311 million Americans to just

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a representative 100 people.[br]Make it simple.

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Here they are; teachers, coaches,[br]firefighters, construction workers,

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engineers, doctors, lawyers, [br]some investment bankers,

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a CEO, maybe a celebrity or two.

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Now, let's line them up [br]according to their wealth,

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poorest people on the left,

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wealthiest on the right,

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just a steady row of folks [br]based on their net worth.

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We'll color code them like [br]we did before based on

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which 20 percent quintile they fall into.

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Now, let's reduce the [br]total wealth of the United States

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which was roughly $54 trillion in 2009,

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to this symbolic pile of cash.

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And let's distribute it [br]among our 100 Americans.

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Well, here's socialism, all the [br]wealth of the country distributed equally.

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We all know that won't work.

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We need to encourage people[br]to work and work hard to

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achieve that good ol' "American Dream"[br]and keep our country moving forward.

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So, here's that ideal [br]we asked everyone about,

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something like this curve.

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This isn't too bad.

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We've got some incentive[br]as the wealthiest folks are now

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about 10 to 20 times better off[br]than the poorest Americans. But, hey!

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Even the poor folks[br]aren't actually poor since

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the poverty line has stayed [br]almost entirely off the chart.

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We have a super-healthy middle class,

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with a smooth transition into wealth.

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And yes, Republicans and Democrats [br]alike chose this curve.

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Nine out of 10 people, 92 percent,

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said this was a nice ideal distribution [br]of America's wealth. But let's move on.

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This is what people think America's [br]wealth distribution actually looks like.

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Not as equitable, clearly,

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but for me, even this [br]still looks pretty great.

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Yes, the poorest 20 to 30 percent are

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starting to suffer quite [br]a lot compared to the ideal,

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and the middle class is certainly [br]struggling more than they were,

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while the rich and wealthy are [br]making roughly 100 times that

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of the poorest Americans,

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and about 10 times that of the [br]still healthy middle-class.

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Sadly, this isn't even [br]close to the reality.

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Here is the actual distribution [br]of wealth in America.

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The poorest Americans don't even register.

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They're down to pocket change.

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And the middle class is barely [br]distinguishable from the poor.

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In fact, even the rich between the [br]top 10 and 20 percentile are worse off.

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Only the top 10 percent are better off,

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and how much better off?

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So much better off that

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the top two to five percent are actually [br]off the chart at this scale.

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And the top one percent, this guy,

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well his stack of money stretches [br]10 times higher than we can show.

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Here's his stack of cash restacked, [br]all by itself.

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This is the top one percent [br]we've been hearing so much about.

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So much green in his pockets that I have [br]to give him a whole new column of his own,

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because he won't fit on my chart.

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One percent of America has [br]40 percent of all the nation's wealth.

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The bottom 80 percent,

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eight out of every ten [br]people or 80 out of these 100,

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only has seven percent between them.

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And this has only gotten worse [br]in the last 20 to 30 years.

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While the richest one percent [br]take home almost a quarter

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of the national income today,[br]in 1976, they took home only nine percent,

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meaning their share of income [br]has nearly tripled in the last 30 years.

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The top one percent only [br]half the country's stocks,

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bonds, and mutual funds.

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The bottom 50 percent of Americans own [br]only half a percent of these investments,

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which means they aren't investing.

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They're just scraping by.

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I'm sure many of these wealthy people [br]have worked very hard for their money.

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But do you really believe[br]that the CEO is working

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380 times harder than[br]his average employee?

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Not his lowest paid employee,

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not the janitor, but the [br]average earner in his company?

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The average worker needs to work more than

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a month to earn what [br]the CEO makes in one hour.

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We certainly don't have [br]to go all the way to socialism,

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to find something that is fair [br]for hardworking Americans.

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We don't even have to achieve [br]what most of us consider might be ideal.

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All we need to do is [br]wake up and realize that

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the reality in this country [br]is not at all what we think it is.