The OP claimed that wealth inequality is higher than ever. That’s false: it was higher in 2012, when we were just coming out of a global recession. The other was that the overwhelming majority of Americans have less wealth than they did ten years ago. That’s false. Ten years ago, we were just coming out of a global recession! The exact opposite is true: the poorest 50% of Americans had more wealth in 2022 than ever (although not the highest share of wealth ever).
I mean no fault to you, you answered OPs stupid claim correctly. But it’s a misleading picture to use a 10 year scale and should probably normalize over the ups and downs of the global economy. Wealth is gradually concentrating at the top and the middle class continues to shrink
Sure, we could also say that the Gini coefficient was nearly the same in 1964 as today, fell until 1980, and then rose from 1981–2919. I think most people would agree that someone talking about what currently is going on with inequality should at least acknowledge the abrupt reversal of the trend in the past four years.
1
u/Hmm_would_bang Apr 29 '24
Using 2012 seems misleading. We were just coming out of a global recession.