Ideal-Think-Reality of US Wealth Distribution

Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.

I ran into this video infographic last year, as I researched poverty and wrote lengthy articles: Letting Poverty Speak and Eradicating Poverty.  I posted it on social media, and noted:

I'd say, There is something fundamentally wrong with economic law, which makes [MIT Professor Erik] Brynjolfsson's point such a gross understatement. As the wealth has risen geometrically, the divide between the have and the have-not seems to have widened as well.

It's a very good video. Very impactful. 

Definitely, the animation and graphics hammer home a disturbing message about inequality.

Let's have a look at the following screen shots from the video:

What we think the wealth distribution is, and what we believe it ought to be, are one thing

But the reality is so much further from what we think and what we believe

In fact just 1% own a greater portion of wealth than what we believe the top 20% ought to have

This sort of socialist (equal) wealth distribution is not what we are asking for

But here is our ideal presented in another way

Here is our take of what it is

Here is what it actually is: The poorest barely register, and the richest stretch off the infographic

In fact that ungodly fortunate 1% has to have his own column to stack his stockpile

If a picture paints a thousand words...

Dealing with poverty, and perhaps eradicating it altogether, are extraordinarily difficult efforts.  The issues that gave rise to it and, more importantly, the factors that perpetuate it, are comparatively complex.  But when the narrator encourages us to wake up, it echoes a central tenet of Theory of Algorithms: take reality as it is (rf. Part 1 - A Beautiful Matter).

Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, they of that top 1%, have pledged a great portion of their wealth for philanthropic purpose.  Kudos to them.  But they can only keep encouraging other members of that über elite club to do the same, and we can hope that they will.  The wealthiest country in the world is not wealthy, in the least, as long as it holds segments of its citizens in poverty.