Chart of the Day: America’s richest 1% own 40% of the country’s wealth

Dec 7, 2017

The proportion of wealth own by the richest 1% is the largest in 50 years

Image: REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration

Laura Oliver

Writers, Forum Agenda

Our Impact

What's the World Economic Forum doing to accelerate action on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion?

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how United States is affecting economies, industries and global issues

Stay up to date:

United States

The richest 1% of America's households own 40% of the country's wealth – the biggest proportion in 50 years, according to a new paper by economist Edward N. Wolff.

The research, reported on by the Washington Post, also suggests that the country's top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 90% of households combined. The wealth gap has widened in recent decades, with the share of wealth owned by the richest 1% growing by nearly three percentage points since 2013 alone.

Have you read?

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.