Here’s an often-cited fact about wealth disparity in the United States: The top 1% of the country owns more wealth than the bottom 90% does combined. But let’s put some faces to the numbers, shall we? To begin with, the three wealthiest people in the United States–Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett–own more wealth than the bottom half of the country combined. Equally concerning: Three families–the Waltons, the Kochs, and the Mars–own a combined fortune of $348.7 billion, more than 4 million American families who possess the median wealth in the country.
The super-wealthy, self-made men of the Bezos variety, are representative of the pernicious way that capitalism funnels money toward people who need it the least. The inherited wealth of people like the Waltons show that this is something that has been happening over time, and has yet to be broken.
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