The weirdly comforting thing here is that more than half of the wealth is still in the bottom 99%. That means the masses still have economic power. The problem, of course, is that they cannot deploy it with the same coordination as the smaller group.
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2025
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US wealth by wealth percentile group. 50% of households own 2.5% of the nation’s wealth.
(lemmy.world)
Source: Federal Reserve
Those last 9 percent might be hard to convince since they're already doing quite well.
I don't think it's comforting at all.
If you remove the top 1%, the remaining wealth is concentrated in the top 10%. This group of people is highly invested in the status quo; their wealth and power is usually used to prop up the current system.
These people are reffered to by many names: petit bourgeoisie, professional managerial class, small business tyrants, etc.
don't forget oligarchs
It's almost doubly comforting to that 10% though, right?
How much land does this top 10% need? 🤔
Power that can't be deployed is by definition not power at all though, right?
Odd observation
Yes, but "the masses" are able to deploy concerted power, like in the instance of the harm done to Tesla sales lately. It's just more difficult to coordinate it.
Oh good, our dollars can go to another massive corporation that will do the exact same thing. Sometimes choice really isn't choice at all.
Eh. If you're just not buying any new car, you've already paid off the one you have, then that is a choice - and no corporation is getting any more money from you as a result of it. But I feel the pain of what you're saying. The case you're describing really rears its head for things like groceries where you actually do need to just keep buying them forever, and you may not have a farmer's market around. But I think people could truly cut down on their car consumption a lot. Some Americans are getting new cars every three years or so.
Totally agree, I have never purchased a new car and probably never will. We try to car pool whenever possible as well. If public transportation was better I would consider using it more often.
These are federal statistics. I wouldn't trust those, especially not since Trump tries his best to skim and remove anything he doesn't like.
The reality is way worse. The 1% holds far more than the graph shows.
How many people are in each category?
Curren population is 347.533.640
99.9 => 347.533 people
99 - 99.9 => 3.127.802 people
99 - 90 => 31.625.562 people
99 - 50 => 142.141.258 people
50 - 0 => 173.766.820 people
Multiply the population by the percentage? (I didn't find anything on that page suggesting that it wouldn't be the case.)
342 million * 0.5 = 171 million people who are in the bottom yellow line. The top darker green line is 342 million * 0.001 = 342 thousand people
I think you can do the others yourself if you like.
Around 350M Americans, so the bottom 50% is about 175M, next 49%'s about the same, top 1% is 3.5M, top 0.1% is 350K people.
Capitalism working as intended. But it's not finished yet. Get back to work peasants.
The bottom 99% own 66% of the economy. That would be enough to control it.
How is wealth defined? If debt is included then a lot of people are below zero even with good incomes.