Existing comment:
Lauren Gohara
What the Bottom 40% Really Have
A study asked participants how they thought wealth was distributed between each quintile (economic groups of 20% each) of the population. The middle horizontal bar represents how people guessed wealth is divided. Participants estimated that the wealthiest 20% (in yellow) own approximately half of all wealth, and that the poorest 40% (in light blue and dark blue) own less than 10% of all wealth. The bottom bar represents what respondents thought would be a fair distribution. The top bar shows how wealth is actually distributed: the wealthiest 20% of Americans hold 84% of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 40% hold 0.3%. |