{"id":4437,"date":"2011-10-04T06:49:24","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T13:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bspcn.com\/?p=4437"},"modified":"2011-10-05T06:55:46","modified_gmt":"2011-10-05T13:55:46","slug":"5-facts-you-should-know-about-the-wealthiest-one-percent-of-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2011\/10\/04\/5-facts-you-should-know-about-the-wealthiest-one-percent-of-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Facts You Should Know About the Wealthiest One Percent of Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by alternet<\/a><\/p>\n

As the ongoing occupation of Wall Street by hundreds of protesters enters its third week \u2014 and as protests spread to other cities\u00a0such as<\/a>\u00a0Boston<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Los Angeles<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 demonstrators have endorsed a new slogan: \u201cWe are the 99 percent<\/a>.\u201d This slogan refers to an economic struggle between 99 percent of Americans and the richest 1 percent of Americans, who are\u00a0increasingly accumulating<\/a>\u00a0a greater share of the national wealth to the detriment of the middle class.<\/p>\n

It may shock you to learn exactly how wealthy this top 1 percent of Americans is. ThinkProgress has assembled five facts about this class of super-rich Americans:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. The Top 1 Percent of Americans Owns 40 Percent of the Nation\u2019s Wealth<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0As Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz\u00a0points out<\/a>, the richest 1 percent of Americans now own 40 percent of the nation\u2019s wealth. Sociologist William Domhoff\u00a0illustrates this<\/a>\u00a0wealth disparity using 2007 figures where the top 1 percent owned 42 percent of the country\u2019s financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one\u2019s home). How much does the bottom 80 percent own? Only 7 percent.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center> <\/p>\n

As Stiglitz notes, this disparity is much worse than it was in the past, as just 25 years ago the top 1 percent\u00a0owned 33 percent<\/a>\u00a0of national wealth.<\/p>\n

2. The Top 1 Percent of Americans Take Home 24 Percent of National Income<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the richest 1 percent of Americans take home almost a quarter of national income today, in 1976\u00a0they took home just 9 percent<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 meaning their share of the national income pool has nearly tripled in roughly three decades.<\/p>\n

3. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Own Half of the Country\u2019s Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0The Institute for Policy Studies\u00a0illustrates<\/a>\u00a0this massive disparity in financial investment ownership, noting that the bottom 50 percent of Americans own only .5 percent of these investments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center> <\/p>\n

4. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Have Only 5 Percent of the Nation\u2019s Personal Debt<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using 2007 figures, sociologist William Domhoff\u00a0points out<\/a>\u00a0that the top 1 percent have 5 percent of the nation\u2019s personal debt while the bottom 90 percent have 73 percent of total debt:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center> <\/p>\n

5. The Top 1 Percent are Taking In More of the Nation\u2019s Income Than at Any Other Time Since the 1920s<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not only are the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans taking home a tremendous portion of the national income, but their share of this income is greater than at any other time since the Great Depression, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities\u00a0illustrates in this chart<\/a>\u00a0using 2007 data:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

As Professor Elizabeth Warren has explained, \u201cThere is\u00a0nobody in this country<\/a>\u00a0who got rich on his own. Nobody\u2026Part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.\u201d<\/p>\n

More and more often, that is not occurring, giving the protesters ample reason to take to the streets.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bonus 1:\u00a0I am 62 years old.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"null\"<\/p>\n

Bonus 2: They are the 99%, or at least they used to be. [long] <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"null\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by alternet As the ongoing occupation of Wall Street by hundreds of protesters enters its third week \u2014 and as protests spread to other cities\u00a0such as\u00a0Boston\u00a0and\u00a0Los Angeles\u00a0\u2014 demonstrators have endorsed a new slogan: \u201cWe are the 99 percent.\u201d This slogan refers to an economic struggle between 99 percent of Americans and the richest 1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4437"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4439,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4437\/revisions\/4439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}