When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced this week that he will give away 99 percent of his personal fortune—now estimated at $44 billion—during his lifetime, he was lauded in newspapers and TV broadcasts from coast to coast. But few people noted that giving away his billions will still leave Zuckerberg, his wife Priscilla Chan and newborn daughter Max, with at least $440 million to live on.
Such vast sums of money are unimaginable to most of us. But according to a just-released report, “Billionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us,” by the Institute for Policy Studies, the Facebook founder is merely one of the 400 wealthiest Americans, whose net worth is growing while they evade taxation and drive economic inequality.
“The Forbes 400 provides a useful snapshot of the nation’s wealthiest individuals, an insight into a world most people will never witness firsthand,” the report said, as it lists some incredible comparisons that contrast the vast wealth held by a select few compared to average Americans. “The Forbes 400 also provides an insight into just how lopsided our economy has become: Just 400 people hold as much wealth as over 190 million.”
Consider the following six bullet points from the report. The authors state they “believe that these statistics actually underestimate our current national levels of wealth concentration,” because, “the growing use of offshore tax havens and legal trusts has made the concealing of assets much more widespread than ever before.”
A luxury jet versus half a continent. America’s 20 wealthiest people — a group that could fit comfortably in a single Gulfstream G650 luxury jet – now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households.
The unbelievable racial wealth gap. The Forbes 400 now own about as much wealth as the nation’s entire African-American population, plus more than a third of the Latino population, combined.
Blacks still have the least wealth. The wealthiest 100 households now own about as much wealth as the entire African American population in the United States. Among the Forbes 400, just two individuals are African American: Oprah Winfrey and Robert Smith.
Latinos are barely doing better. The wealthiest 186 members of the Forbes 400 own as much wealth as the entire Latino population. Just five members of the Forbes 400 are Latino: Jorge Perez, Arturo Moreno and three members of the Santo Domingo family.
Four hundred versus 194 million. With a combined worth of $2.34 trillion, the Forbes 400 own more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the country combined, a staggering 194 million people.
Astounding wealth gap. The median American family has a net worth of $81,000. The Forbes 400 own more wealth than 36 million of these typical American families. That’s the number of households in the United States that own cats.
There are many reasons why it’s important to track the nation’s richest individuals and the wealth gap between them and average Americans. The authors point out that many of today’s economic insecurities could be lessened if the wealthiest Americans—exemplified by the Forbes 400—paid a fairer share of taxes and were no longer able to use an encylopedia’s worth of federal loopholes that enable them to park their money offshore and exercise disproportionate influence in the political process, from elections to lobbying.
But before delving into their recommendations and policy solutions, the authors explain that simply using the term top 1 percent doesn’t really reveal the true picture of wealth concerntration in America. Nor does focusing on the top one-tenth of the 1 percent.
“The bulge at the top of our wealth ‘space needle’ reflects America’s wealthiest 0.1 percent, the top one-thousandth of our population, an estimated 115,000 households with a net worth starting at $20 million,” they write. “This group owns more than 20 percent of U.S. household wealth, up from 7 percent in the 1970s. This elite subgroup, University of California-Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez points out, now owns about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of America combined.”
Peeling Back Layers of Super Wealth
A look at the wealthiest 400 people in the U.S. provides a better reflection.
“We need to examine our wealthiest 400, a cohort small enough to dine in the rotating luxury restaurant atop the Space Needle in Seattle,” they write. “These 400 all possess fortunes worth at least $1.7 billion. Our wealthiest 400 now have more wealth combined than the bottom 61 percent of the U.S. population, an estimated 70 million households, or 194 million people. That’s more people than the population of Canada and Mexico combined.”
And then there’s the top of the top: the 20 wealthiest individuals in the U.S. “The 20 wealthiest Americans include eight founders of corporations: Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google), Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg), and Phil Knight (Nike). The list also features nine heirs from families of dynastic wealth: two Koch brothers, four Waltons (Walmart), and three fortunate souls from the Mars candy empire. Rounding out this top 20: investors Warren Buffett and George Soros and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.”
— source salon.com By Steven Rosenfeld.