Top 1% Of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From Bottom 90%

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The coronavirus pandemic was once said to be the ‘great-leveller’, threatening people from all backgrounds equally. But it quickly became apparent that those predictions were way wide of the mark.

As millions of people struggle with unemployment and face massive challenges just to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads, a new study has found that 2020 marked a new milestone for income inequality, with a select few of the world’s ultra-wealthy having gained and hoarded wealth beyond most people’s wildest dreams.

TIME magazine reports that over the past four decades the top 1% of the wealthiest people in America have taken $50 trillion from the poorest 90%, seeing their own personal wealth grow exponentially while others in society suffer.

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The report is based on a recent study by the RAND corporation, which estimates that since the 1970s income inequality has increased by an average $2.5 trillion a year, crossing the $50 trillion milestone in 2020.

To put that into perspective, if average rates of income distribution had stayed at the levels seen in the 1950s and 60s, the bottom 90% of Americans would have been able to be paid an additional $1,144 a month each year – almost double the current median wage in the country.

While this trend wasn’t caused by the pandemic, experts says that the impact of continued lockdowns and the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 has made things far worse, and in many ways has accelerated the already-growing gap between the rich and the poor.

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What’s more, this upward trend in income inequality over the past decades may also be in part responsible for the struggles faced by many during the pandemic, with each dollar of the $50 trillion figure hoarded by the country’s top 1% representing a dollar that could have been spent on public services, healthcare provisions and and other social and economic policies benefiting average Americans were income distributed more equally.

While the study found that white women and Black men had closed the earnings gap between their white male counterparts over the past few decades, there are still significant disparities there too, with the gap still currently standing at 68% and 80% respectively.

TIME reports that this growing gap was not inevitable either, rather the result of government policies which accelerated the redistribution of wealth away from poorer Americans. Ultimately, reducing taxes on billionaires and their businesses and deregulating the finance industry, all while resisting calls to increase ‘this upward redistribution of income, wealth, and power wasn’t inevitable; it was a choice—a direct result of the trickle-down policies we chose to implement since 1975.’

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