Just how much money does the wealthiest 1 percent have? Well, they now have more money than America’s entire middle class, according to a new report.
The top 1 percent of taxpayers had incomes starting at $515,371 in 2017, according to the latest Internal Revenue Service data.
“For now, those Americans in 90th to 99th percentiles — well-to-do, but not the super-rich — still control the biggest share of wealth, with $42.6 trillion in assets. The lone group left out of the fun: the bottom 50 percent of Americans. Those households have 35.7 percent of liabilities in the U.S. and just 6.1 percent of assets,” Bloomberg reported.
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One-percenters now have almost as much wealth as the middle- and upper-middle classes combined — yes, combined.
According to data from the Federal Reserve, the top 1 percent of American households reaped major benefits in the stock market in the past 10 years. “Those fat portfolios have America’s elite gobbling up an ever-bigger piece of the pie. The very richest had assets of about $35.4 trillion in the second quarter, or just shy of the $36.9 trillion held by the tens of millions of people who make up the 50th percentile to the 90th percentile of Americans — much of the middle and upper-middle classes,” Bloomberg reported.
Certain generations have benefited the most. “Age also plays a role in wealth. Some young people have recently taken to mocking older Americans for being out of touch, hurling the term “OK Boomer” around social media. However, Baby Boomers born between the end of the Second World War and 1964 may have the last laugh. They had wealth that was 11 times higher than that of millennials as of the second quarter,” Bloomberg reported.
