Latino Leadership Institute’s Post

"Wealth inequality is higher in the United States than in almost any other developed country and has risen for much of the past 60 years." These charts by the Urban Institute break down important disparities, in particular, those across racial groups. The good thing, as the authors highlight in charts 5-9, is there are several public policy solutions readily available to tackle these issues. #inequality #publicpolicy #research #datavisualization

In the past 60 years, America witnessed a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest families, increasing wealth inequality. In 1963, the wealthiest families had 36 times the wealth of families in the middle of the wealth distribution. By 2022, they had 71 times the wealth of families in the middle. Between 1963 and 2022, families near the bottom of the wealth distribution (those at the 10th percentile) went from having $23 in debt to $450 in wealth, those in the middle (50th percentile) nearly quadrupled their wealth (from $50,598 to $192,700), those near the top (at the 90th percentile) saw their wealth increase more than sixfold (from $294,573 to $1.9 million), and the wealthiest families—those wealthier than 99 percent of all families—saw their wealth increase more than sevenfold (from $1.8 million to $13.6 million). As a ratio, this gap decreased somewhat between 2016 and 2022, when the wealthiest families’ wealth dropped from 107 times greater than that of families in the middle to 71 times greater. Though the ratio remained relatively high during this period, it decreased the most during the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially because of stimulus checks. Between 2019 and 2022, the wealthiest families’ wealth dropped from 91 to 71 times middle-class families’ wealth. The only other time that wealth inequality had decreased since 1963 was between 1989 and 1995, when the wealthiest families’ wealth decreased from 49 to 42 times that of middle-class families. Urban Institute / https://www.urban.org/ https://lnkd.in/gW_puRUf

Inequality is a big topic in the US. On the economic side, the conversation often focuses on income inequality. But people are also talking about the wealth gap. National data shows that in 2019, for every dollar in wealth held by white families, Black families held just 13 cents of wealth. Those concerned about the wealth gap are working hard to shrink it. In this blog post written by Fed Communities senior writer, Gabriella Chiarenza, find out why strategies that consider the problem’s deeper roots could make a difference. #wealthgap #economicequality #wealthbuilding https://lnkd.in/dSm99DVz

Really proud to help refresh this classic and important piece of work from Urban Institute. Fresh data, fresh charts and a fresh data visualization tech stack (Svelte, Datawrapper and our own nascent library of reusable components for building custom projects like these). Wealth inequality is higher in the United States than in almost any other developed country and has risen for much of the past 60 years. Give this project a read to learn more about why that is, as well as possible policy solutions that could reduce inequality in the U.S. https://lnkd.in/eTx7WBNy

Urban Institute’s newly updated Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America tells the story of wealth inequality in our country and the long-standing effects of racist policies, not individual intentions or deficits. The first three charts show #wealth disparities over time across race and age. The remainder demonstrate how gaps in earnings, #homeownership rates, retirement savings, emergency savings, benefits from tax subsidies, and intergenerational transfers contribute to wealth inequities. Explore and interact with each of the nine charts, which show: 1. Wealth is increasing but so is inequality. 2. Wealth gaps by race and ethnicity are large. 3. The wealth gap between Black and white families widens with age. 4. Differences in lifetime earnings widen wealth gaps. 5. Exclusionary homeownership policies have benefited white households at the expense of households of color. 6. Black and Hispanic families have less retirement savings than white families. 7. Black and Hispanic families are less likely than white families to have emergency savings. 8. Federal tax policies fail to help families with low incomes build wealth. 9. White families are more likely to receive an inheritance than families of color. https://urbn.is/3Qh4Zw4

WOW - chart #8's glare is blinding. It's clear that #taxation policies help high-income households build wealth at the expense of low-income families. Check out these charts on #racialwealthgap #financialsecurity #retirementsavings and #financialhealth. 👇🏾 👇🏾 👇🏾 Brava, Urban Institute team.

"We begin with the case the #SupremeCourt takes up on Tuesday that will kill any proposed #wealthtaxes before they even exist and further weaken the government’s ability to collect revenue from the wealthy and powerful as dynastic wealth from the #inheritors of billions now surpasses the wealth created by the entrepreneurial billionaires who created the fortunes. Joining us is #ChuckCollins, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he directs the Program on Inequality and co-edits Inequality.org. He is the author of Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Is Inequality in America Irreversible?, and his latest book is The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions." https://lnkd.in/eS6uq8bn

Designed income inequality has gotten us here: A successful society is a progress machine. It takes in the raw material of innovations and produces broad human advancement. America’s machine is broken,” Giridharadas wrote. “When the fruits of change have fallen on the United States in recent decades, the very fortunate have basketed almost all of them.” He lists several examples, including the fact the income of the top ten percent of Americans has more than doubled since 1980; the top one percent’s income has tripled; the top 0.001 percent has increased 700 percent; meanwhile, the income for the bottom half of Americans, half of the entire country’s populations, has not moved an inch.

New research from the Financial Well-Being Data Hub sheds light on #wealth #inequality in the United States. In a nation that professes to reward those who work hard, these persistent disparities are a stark reminder that we have not achieved this goal. Review the 9 charts to understand how gaps in #earnings, #homeownership, #retirementsavings, #emergencysavings, #taxsubsidies, and #intergenerationaltransfers contribute to wealth inequities. Many thanks to the research team that created this impressive feature: Madeline Brown, MPAP, Mingli Zhong, PhD, Signe-Mary McKernan, Oriya Cohen, Catherine Harvey, Eugene Steuerle, Ofronama Biu, PhD, Apueela Wekulom, Michael Neal, Amalie Zinn, and Damir Cosic.

Economic #Inequality and #Plutocracy - PDF: https://lnkd.in/gRiw45qA Big problems such as climate change and economic insecurity can only be solved with supportive government action. In order to get the needed policies enacted, will we first have to reduce #income and #wealth inequality? After declining during the middle of the twentieth century, economic inequality between the rich and the non-rich in the #UnitedStates has increased sharply since the late 1970s. The share of income going to the top 1 percent of households has risen from 9 percent to 16 percent, and the top 1 percent’s wealth share has jumped from 26 percent to 33 percent (Piketty, Saez, and Zucman 2018, Figure 5; Bricker et al. 2020,Figure B). Money can buy political influence, so unequal income or wealth can translate into unequal ability to influence policy making. As top-end economic inequality grows, we may increasingly get #government by the wealthy. I think the available evidence suggests two conclusions. First, economic inequality has an impact on inequality of political influence. America’s rich very likely have more influence on policy decisions than the non rich do. Second, because there is a tipping point beyond which this effect diminishes, wealthy Americans may have roughly the same amount of political advantage nowadays that they did in the late 1970s or early 1980s. This matters for two reasons. One is scientific. We want to understand how our political system works, including what determines policy. The other is practical. If economic inequality gives America’s top 1 percent immense political power, and if many of these plutocrats oppose the kind of government action needed to effectively address problems such as climate change and economic insecurity, progress may be blocked until we achieve significant equalization of income and wealth. That is likely to be a very heavy lift. The rise in top-end economic inequality over the past four decades has multiple causes, so there is no simple recipe for reversing this trend (Manza 2015; Kenworthy 2017). Moreover, if it’s true that an increase in economic inequality gives the rich even greater influence over policy decisions, America might now be stuck in a plutocratic ‘#doomloop’ —economic inequality rises, causing an increase in political inequality, which leads to policies that further increase economic inequality—from which there is no escape.