Why is it that the richest 5% of our population hold 20% of the wealth?

Question

While the poorest 20% hold 5% of the wealth...doesn't that seem a bit unequal to people? How can the poor people (that are already hardworking) get out of that ecomic hole and participate in society?

I spelled economic wrong..sorry!

yeah i think the percentage is higher now, the middle class is also losing out to the upper class...so sad, poverty is still around rearing it's ugly head!

Panacea sounds like he favors social darwinism...scary.

Answer 1

The post by "Panacea" contains significant errors of fact, and relies upon one of the oldest and most ill-founded misconceptions about poverty and wealth - whether in America or in any other country: The poor really have it good, in fact.

That is an utter falsehood.

Home ownership in the United States has increased in recent years, but as a total per cent of the population has in fact declined. To claim that "90%" of all persons below the poverty line own their own homes is laughable claptrap.

Poverty has in fact increased in the US. Poverty as measured against an index of cost of living is on the rise in the country because the real wages of most lower-middle-class and lower-income persons have declined in comparison with the costs of living.

Accumulation of wealth, in the meantime, has been fostered by Rpublican Party tax and other policies - although the persons at the very top of the American wealth index pay the largets volume of dollars into government coffers, as a percentage of their income and earnings they pay less than any person earning less than $100,000 per year.

One conservative economist a year or so ago wrote a brilliant article about "the American dream" - he stated, bluntly, that is is entirely a myth. Hard work and saving helps stabilize people's lives, but in terms of "getting ahead," it doesn't work.

Asking this quesiton does not display a Communist, or maxist, point of view. it raises a very good issue.

Ultimately changes in national policies regulating working hours, wages, terms of employment, protection of retirement pension plans, rewarding savings by lower-income persons, and reforms such as a national helath plan, will do moe to enable average people to benefit economically from the country THEY made. However, you'll have to vote for Democrats - there isn't a Republican alive who doesn't dream of being another Ken Lay, but just not getting caught.

Answer 2

Simple. They created/earned it.

You are absolutely right. It is completely not fair that the lowest 20% slacks off so much and barely makes 5% of this countries wealth. Of course, this is a relative thing. Those poorest 20% all own houses (90% of the people below the poverty line own their own house) and live a lifestyle considered afluent by most other countries. That's outrageous considering they are basically sucking off the accomplishments of people higher up on the food chain.

The poor in this country need to copy the habits of the rich in this country if they want to create wealth the same way. The US is a land of unlimited opportunity. But you can't prosper if you spend all your time smoking crack, committing crimes and having babies out of wedlock that you have no intention of raising. The only reason these people have anything at all is we give it to them. They simply are not pulling their own weight in society. If they did, they would become fabulously wealthy with little effort.

Just about the worst thing we could do as a society is to take from our productive members and give it to these hosebags. Money that would have been spent of creating jobs and a decent standard of living for all, will disappear up the collective noses of these junkies, if we do that. That's not an opinion, BTW. That is the collective observation of nearly two generations of socialist thought in this country. It's been a dismal failure. Give these parasites their three hots and a cot and leave the door open for the rare one of them that decides they want something better out of life. But, don't give them wealth. It will only destroy them.

Answer 3

While it is probably true that the riches hold an unfair portion of the resources on earth, this kind of statistics is misleading. Home and Land value is a big part of wealth for any individual. So if the land price of a particular region is high, people in that region are deemed wealthy (rich is weathy plus a lot of disposable income). So if one is rich, one holds a lot of expensive real estate, then the statistics will show that person will hold a lot of % in terms of wealth. Think about this, in Asia, apartments are expensive, an average family could be weathy in real estate term but their living standard could be less than that of an average family in US because the US families saves a lot of money in housing and have more buying power with their income.

To get out of the hole, one has to get the best education and save money and pool the saving together, buy some real property. It takes more than 1 generation to get out of the hole. Just what Immigrants do in this country.

Answer 4

Actually I think the percentage of wealth held is much higher than 20 but I feel it is because we are no longer living in a democratic society but rather an Aristocratic based because most of that wealth is also going to be passed on from generation to generation similar to British nobility from the 1400s on

Answer 5

i'm fantastically particular a million% holds 16% of the wealth, genuinely, and 5% owns a million/3 of the wealth. nevertheless that type of disparity is rattling close to 0.33 international. "the right a million% also pay 29% of the taxes. even as the authorities over regulates and over taxes, why do not they have the right to take their belongings and wealth and flow the position they go with? They earned the money ... why do people imagine they have the right to percentage in it? " it really is a uncomplicated mis-concept. That the richest people in the country are being rewarded for his or her exertions. they are genuinely being rewarded for possessing and controlling capital, and the fulfillment of company endeavors in all probability don't have as a lot to do with exertions as one my suspect. i'm reminded of a study (The good judgment of global Restructuring: administration of Dependencies in Rival business Complexes) had chanced on that "a minimum of twenty agencies in the 1993 Fortune one hundred don't have survived in any respect as self sufficient agencies, in the experience that they'd not been kept with the help of their respective governments." Bailouts, personal loan ensures, tax loopholes, protectionist measures, or outright subsidy* all of it works to shop the most effective agencies alive, and this has "been the rule of thumb particularly than the exception in the course of the last 2 centuries,...has performed a key function in the shape and diffusion of many product and procedure techniques - quite in aerospace, electronics, modern-day agriculture, supplies technologies, means and transportation technologies," and that i'd upload telecom and pharma to that record, while in the course of the Revolution, textile, metal and means were also on that record. So truly, the own wealth of the right 5% is through public subsidy/spending. *And none of that's to educate the efforts overseas with the help of both the CIA or US militia to guard "nationwide intrests" that do not genuinely exist in the country. The annexation of Hawaii and United Fruit organization's involvement in Guatemala are in common words the most notorious examples.

Answer 6

Do you realize what a dumb question this is? No offence.
Of course the richest hold more wealth. It is not equal. That is communism and it does not work. Also, the poorest are not always the hardest working. Have you ever considered how the wealthiest got that way? Think a little harder.

Answer 7

That would be nice if it were true but I think the richest 5% hold more like 50% of the wealth...

In answer to that question? Start with the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels...

Answer 8

Of course. And that inequality actually continues to grow.

The reason is pretty simple: people like to have money, and they like to get even more of it.
Therefore the people with the means to earn a lot of money do so.
And the people without the means to earn a lot of money end up becoming marginalized in civilization.

That's why regulation is important in a capitalist economy. Otherwise, it turns into a giant pyramid scheme, with all the money slowly working its way towards the top.

Answer 9

that's a lot better, many countries have top 5 percent holding 60 to 70 percent of the wealth, you sound like a communist