Wealth Inequality in America

There's a chart I saw recently

that I can't get out of my head.

A Harvard business professor and economist

asked more than 5000 Americans

how they thought wealth was distributed

in the United States.

This is what they said they thought it was.

Dividing the country into 5 rough groups

of the top, bottom, and middle three 20%,

they asked people how they thought

the wealth of this country was divided.

Then he asked them what they thought

was the ideal distribution, and 92%,

that's at least 9 out of 10 of them,

said it should be more like this

in other words, more equitable than they think it is.

That fact is telling, admittedly, the notion

that most Americans know that the system

is already skewed unfairly.

What's most interesting to me is

the reality compared to our perception.

The ideal is as far removed from our perception

of reality, as the actual distribution is from

what we think exists in this country.

So, ignore the ideal for a moment.

Here's what we think it is again,

and here is the actual distribution,

shockingly skewed.

Not only do the bottom 20% and the next 20%,

the bottom 40% of Americans,

barely have any of the wealth --

it's hard to even see them on the chart --

but the top 1% has more of the country's wealth

than 9 out of 10 Americans believe

the entire top 20% should have.

Mindblowing.

But let's look at it another way

because I find this chart kind of difficult

to wrap my head around.

Instead, let's reduce the 311 million Americans

just to a representative 100 people.

It's simple. Here they are:

Teachers, coaches, firefighters,

construction workers, engineers, doctors,

lawyers, some investment bankers,

a CEO, and maybe a celebrity or two.

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

poorest people on the left, wealthiest on the right,

a steady row of folks, based on their net worth.

We'll color-code them like we did before,

based on which 20% quintile they fall into.

Now let's reduce the total wealth of the U.S.,

which was roughly 54 trillion dollars in 2009

to this symbolic pile of cash,

and let's distribute it among our 100 Americans.

Well, here's socialism, all the wealth of the nation

being distributed equally -- we all know

that won't work

We need to encourage people to work,

and work hard, to achieve that

good old American dream

and keep our country moving forward.