Amid raucous political debate over tax cuts for the rich and who owns most of America's wealth, university researchers have found at least one reason why we suffer such bruising public policy stalemates in this country.
When it comes to wealth inequity in the United States, we just don't know what we're talking about.
- First, those surveyed grossly underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. They figured the richest 20 percent of people in this country owned about 58 percent of the wealth. In fact, the top 20 percent own closer to 84 percent of the nation's wealth — a dramatic difference.
- Second, respondents chose their own "ideal" wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Ideally, those surveyed said the top 20 percent of the nation's richest should control about 32 percent of the wealth. That's 52 percentage points — more than half of the entire nation's wealth — lower than the actual portion of wealth in the hands of the richest 20 percent in this country.
- Finally and most significant to policymakers: All demographic groups — "even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy," the researchers say — desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo. Not only did the 20 percent richest own less wealth in this scenario, but the remaining 80 percent of the population shared more even portions of the remaining wealth.
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