Brutal truths about income inequality in US

We hear the brutal truth about growing income inequality in the United States.   Here are some stats from an article by Katie Warren in Business Insider.

Warren quotes Ben Silverman from a recent Bloomberg article:  "The bottom half of Americans combined have a negative net worth."    This frames the statistic a little differently and thus makes it even more shocking.

In other words, if you take the net worth of the bottom half of all Americans, they collectively owe more than they own.

This is based on research of economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who also found that:
     top 0.1% of US taxpayers control 20% of the wealth.
     top 1% control 39% of the wealth.
     bottom 90% control only 26% of American wealth.

Zucman says that "The pie has not become bigger.   It's just that a bigger slice is going to the top."

More than 3 million Americans aged 60 and older are still paying off their student loans, while millennials collectively owe $1 trillion in student loan debt.

About 1/5th of Americans don't have any money saved up, according to a Bankrate survey.   Bloomberg News backs this up with its statistical survey.  Despite the lowest unemployment rate in nearly 50 years,  39% of adults say they could not handle an unexpected 400 dollar expense (like car repairs, a new appliance) by paying in cash or credit card, which they would pay with the next monthly payment.

They would have to add it to their long-term credit card debt, borrow from family or friends, or be unable to afford it at all.   That is, nearly 4 in 10 Americans have virtually no liquid savings to cover simple, unexpected living expenses.   It is well known that a major illness is a frequent precipitator of personal bankruptcy.

Donald Trump may crow about the wonderful state of the economy that his own "very stable genius" has created.    But this is the stark reality.   It may be good for that top 1% -- but this trend of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is a story we've heard before.   It does not end well -- for the wealthy.   Think French Revolution, for example.

Ralph