Last week, Mother Jones ran an article I wrote on the growing wealth gap. It opens with a closer look at the Romney’s tax return, which shows not that they “make” a lot of money but that they “have” a lot of wealth. Those at the very top have done quite well. Recent estimates indicate that the while the top 1 percent earn 21 percent of the nation's income, they possess 36 percent of total wealth.
I argue that, in the future, the wealth gap will be larger and more consequential than the income gap.
What's the primary cause of our current and growing wealth gap? Home values, the largest item on most families' balance sheet, remain depressed, while stock prices, the largest item on the balance sheet for those at the top, have rebounded. In short, Wall Street has recovered, Main Street has not. Consequently, in the last three years, the concentration of wealth has occurred at the expense of those in the middle…Without drastic changes in the market or in policy, the divergence between housing values and securities prices will be the main driver of wealth inequality for the foreseeable future.
On top of this, the growing racial wealth gap is one of the most dramatic and disputing trends that has taken hold since the recession.
