Wealth Is Concentrated Among The Rich & It's Getting Worse

Most of the wealth in the United States is concentrated among the rich. The pandemic didn't help, and neither has the economic policies of the government. Both have combined to make the rich even richer, while the bottom 90% gets poorer. We are truly becoming a nation of "haves" and "have-nots", and the wealth/income inequality is already worse in the U.S. than in many third world countries.

In the following article at MSNBC.com, Stephanie Ruhle lays out the ugly truth. Here is part of it:

A lot of progress has been made when it comes to power and influence in business and politics over the past 25 years. Or has it?

CEOs of the largest U.S. companies in 1996 made 154 times what their workers madeon average. In 2020, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio ballooned to as high as 830 for some of the worst offenders. We’ve put on conferences, led campaigns and certainly done a lot of talking. But when it comes to the concentration of power and wealth, things actually seem to be getting worse, not better. The big guy has continued to win big time.

This in turn has driven the economic and cultural divide wider as we’ve become a country that we often say is divided by red and blue. But it's also divided by green. . . .

In other words, as rich people have gotten richer, poor people have gotten poorer ... and angrier.

A lot of this anger stems from the fact that many of the perpetrators of the financial crisis didn’t get the severe punishment lawmakers on both sides of the aisle demanded. E-commerce behemoths have steadily squeezed out brick-and-mortar small businesses, and professional investors bought up massive swaths of distressed real estate, outbidding families.

Somewhat ironically, anti-corporate America sentiment helped elect Donald Trump, the richest president in U.S. history, who flanked himself with senior staff and Cabinet members from Goldman Sachs and the hedge fund industry after attacking Wall Street on the campaign trail. . . .

During Trump’s presidency, the economy generally improved and the pro-business policies supercharged markets. But those overall gains were exponentially better for wealthy people. The inequality divide deepened, and even though some business leaders have worked to transform corporate culture and promote "stakeholder capitalism," these efforts, too, have faced much criticism, with critics labeling the changes "woke economics.". . .

Rich people will continue to get richer and poor people poorer, and inevitably attention will return (as it should) to Washington. Lawmakers will point fingers, call for hearings and excoriate business leaders. But if history is our guide, little will change.

Despite public outrage, for the richest Americans and our most powerful businesses, enjoying and exploiting loopholes is the law of the land in the United States of America. Regulation and tax policy seem to always find a way to favor the ones with the deepest pockets.

The future may be different. There may be a whole new set of winners and losers, new technologies and new visionaries. Or maybe the names will change but the story will stay the same.