Re: Illusions of Progress

[dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx (Doug Henwood)]

At 10:08 PM 1/18/96, glevy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>SHAWGI TELL wrote:
>
>> The combined WEALTH [not income - huge difference] of the TOP 1% U.S.
>> families is about the same as the ENTIRE BOTTOM 95%. <snip> (p. 9).
>>         H. Sklar, "Jobs, Income, and Work.  Ruinous Trends, Urgent
>>                 Alternatives," 1995
>
>What _year_ was the above statistic for? The last time I saw that
>statistic it was from _very old_ data.

Here's the info (unpublished Federal Reserve data from the 1989 survey of
consumer finances - the Fed hasn't yet released data from the 1992 survey).
As you can see, if you exclude the principal residence (which is common
among people who do this sort of work) the top 1/2% has almost twice the
share of net worth of the bottom 90% (37.2% vs. 20.7%), and the top 10%,
nearly four-fifths of all nonresidential net worth.

                                              percentiles
                                  -------------------------------------   memo:
                                  0-89.9   90-98.9   99-99.4   99.5-100  top 10%
ASSETS                             36.8%     29.7%      7.4%     26.1%     63.2%
principal residence                65.1%     26.4%      3.3%      5.3%     34.9%
other real estate                  19.8%     35.4%     11.3%     33.5%     80.2%
stocks                             14.6%     36.0%     11.6%     37.8%     85.4%
bonds                               5.5%     15.6%     11.3%     67.6%     94.5%
trusts                              7.1%     41.1%     11.4%     40.5%     93.0%
life insurance                     60.5%     27.0%      5.2%      7.4%     39.5%
checking accounts                  47.4%     28.3%      6.2%     18.1%     52.6%
thrift accounts                    36.2%     49.2%      9.0%      5.6%     63.8%
other accounts                     44.5%     37.4%      6.7%     11.5%     55.5%
business                            9.0%     29.1%     10.5%     51.4%     91.0%
autos                              75.5%     19.1%      2.0%      3.3%     24.5%
other                              21.0%     33.2%      7.6%     38.2%     79.0%

memo: all fin ass + nonres real    24.3%     33.1%      9.9%     32.7%     75.7%


LIABILITIES                        63.9%     21.9%      2.7%     11.5%     36.1%
principal residence                76.3%     19.9%      1.6%      2.2%     23.7%
other real estate                  21.4%     32.8%      6.9%     38.9%     78.6%
other                              73.4%     16.2%      1.2%      9.1%     26.6%

NET WORTH                          31.7%     31.2%      8.3%     28.8%     68.3%
nonresidential                     20.7%     32.1%     10.0%     37.2%     79.3%

FAMILY INCOME                      69.6%     19.6%      3.5%      7.4%     30.4%

Doug

--

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217
USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice
+1-212-874-3137 fax
email: <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>
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