Re:Top 1% take biggest income slice on record
by fewy on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @11:35AM
(#6367821)
This is pretty good math work. Take a look at the actual data below.
Shares of Household Income by Quintile, 2011
Quintile Share Lowest quintile 3.2 Second quintile 8.4 Third quintile 14.3 Fourth quintile 23.0 Highest quintile 51.1
In any wealth distribution other than everyone having the exact same wealth, it is mathematically necessary that the top X% have more than X% of the wealth. The same observation applies within wealth groups, so for example the top 25% of the middle third wealth group must have more than 25% of that group's wealth unless everyone in that group has exactly the same wealth.
When you apply this recursively, things accumulate at the top and and the bottom end. For instance, if within each wealth group the top 50% has 60% (which seems to me likely to be flatter than reality), then for the whole group the top 1% would have 5.6% of the wealth. If the top 50% of each group has 75% of that group's wealth, then the top 1% of the whole group would have 19.7% of the overall wealth.
Given this, I have no idea whatsoever whether I should react to this kind of article with outrage or indifference.