Wealth Inequality in America (Updated 2026) — Transcript

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1. 0:0013 years ago, I had a little 6-minute
2. 0:02video that went viral. It all started
3. 0:04with a simple chart from a study that I
4. 0:06just couldn't get out of my head. Two
5. 0:08economists asked more than [music] 5,000
6. 0:10Americans how they thought wealth in the
7. 0:12US was distributed. [music] Dividing the
8. 0:15country into five rough groups according
9. 0:17to net worth, the top, bottom, and
10. 0:19middle three 20% quintiles. [music] This
11. 0:21is what they thought the distribution
12. 0:23was. Then he asked people what they
13. 0:25thought the ideal distribution was. And
14. 0:2792%, that's at least nine out of 10 of
15. 0:29them, said it should be more like this.
16. 0:32In other words, more equitable than they
17. 0:33thought it was. That response was
18. 0:35telling, admittedly, the notion that
19. 0:37most Americans know that the system is
20. 0:39skewed unfairly. But what was most
21. 0:42interesting to me was the reality
22. 0:44compared to our perception. The ideal
23. 0:46was as far removed from our perception
24. 0:48of reality as the actual distribution is
25. 0:51from what we think [music]
26. 0:52exists. So, ignore the ideal for a
27. 0:54moment. Here's what they thought it was
28. 0:56again, and here was the actual
29. 0:58distribution. Shockingly skewed. Not
30. 1:02only did the bottom 20% and the next
31. 1:0420%, [music]
32. 1:05the bottom 40% of Americans barely have
33. 1:08any of the wealth. I mean, it's hard to
34. 1:10even see them on the chart. But the top
35. 1:121% had more of the country's wealth than
36. 1:15nine out of 10 Americans believe the
37. 1:16entire top 20% [music] should have.
38. 1:20Mind-blowing. 13 years later, this chart
39. 1:22is visually almost the same, although
40. 1:25the concentration at the very top is
41. 1:27increasingly worse. But let's look at it
42. 1:29another way because I still find this
43. 1:31chart difficult to wrap my head around.
44. 1:33Instead, let's reduce the now 340
45. 1:36million Americans to just a
46. 1:37representative [music] 100 people. Make
47. 1:39it simple. Here they are: teachers,
48. 1:42coaches, firefighters, construction
49. 1:44workers, engineers, doctors, lawyers,
50. 1:46some [music] investment bankers, a CEO,
51. 1:49maybe a celebrity or two. Now, let's
52. 1:51line them up according to their wealth.
53. 1:53Poorest people on the left, wealthiest
54. 1:54[music]
55. 1:55on the right. Just a steady row of folks
56. 1:57based on their net worth. We'll color
57. 1:59code them like we did before based on
58. 2:01which quintile [music]
59. 2:02they fall into. Now, let's reduce the
60. 2:04total wealth of the United States, which
61. 2:06as of early 2026 was $174 trillion
62. 2:10to this symbolic pile of cash. And let's
63. 2:13distribute it among our 100 Americans.
64. 2:15So, here's that ideal they asked
65. 2:17everyone about. Something like this
66. 2:19curve. I've even added actual dollar
67. 2:21amounts to the charts using the latest
68. 2:23data sources available.
69. 2:25>> [music]
70. 2:25>> The wealthiest folks are about five
71. 2:27times better off than the poorest
72. 2:29Americans. But even the poor folks
73. 2:31aren't actually poor, sitting on roughly
74. 2:33half a million dollars of net worth. We
75. 2:35have a super healthy middle class with a
76. 2:37smooth transition into wealth. [music]
77. 2:40And yes, Republicans and Democrats alike
78. 2:42chose this curve. 92% said this was a
79. 2:45nice ideal distribution of America's
80. 2:47wealth. This is what people think
81. 2:50America's wealth distribution actually
82. 2:52looks like. Not as equitable, clearly,
83. 2:54but for me, even this still looks pretty
84. 2:56great. Yes, the poorest 20 to 30% are
85. 2:59starting to suffer compared to the
86. 3:01ideal. And the middle class is certainly
87. 3:03struggling more than they were, while
88. 3:05the rich and wealthy are making roughly
89. 3:07100 times that of the poorest Americans
90. 3:09and about [music] 10 times that of the
91. 3:11still healthy middle class. Sadly, this
92. 3:13isn't even close [music] to reality.
93. 3:15Here is the actual distribution of
94. 3:17wealth in America. The poorest Americans
95. 3:20don't even register. In fact, the bottom
96. 3:228% have $0. [music]
97. 3:25The middle class is barely
98. 3:26distinguishable from the poor, and what
99. 3:28little wealth they have is mostly tied
100. 3:30up in [music] mortgage debt and car
101. 3:32payments.
102. 3:33In fact, even the rich between the top 5
103. 3:36and 20% are worse off. Only the top 5%
104. 3:40are better off. And how much better off?
105. 3:42So much better off that the top 2 to 4%
106. 3:45are actually [music] off the chart at
107. 3:47this scale. Heck, the 99th percentile
108. 3:50still won't fit. And the top [music] 1%?
109. 3:53This guy? Well, his stack of money
110. 3:55stretches at least eight times higher
111. 3:57than [music] we can show. Here's his
112. 3:59stack of cash, restacked all by itself.
113. 4:02So much green in his pockets I have to
114. 4:04give him a whole section of his own
115. 4:06because he won't fit on my chart.
116. 4:081% of America now has almost a third of
117. 4:12all the nation's wealth. Roughly the
118. 4:14same amount the entire bottom 90% has.
119. 4:17The bottom 50%, the bottom half, only
120. 4:20have two to two and a half percent.
121. 4:24Which is shockingly up from 13 years
122. 4:26ago. Still pathetic.
123. 4:29The top 1% own half the country's
124. 4:31stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.
125. 4:34The bottom 50% of Americans own a measly
126. 4:371% of these investments.
127. 4:4013 years ago this restacked column kind
128. 4:42of blew people's minds, but I'm about to
129. 4:44take it one step further. You see, that
130. 4:4740 million [music] is only the average
131. 4:49wealth among the 1%. But there's a
132. 4:52fundamental oversimplification
133. 4:54in reducing the total population to only
134. 4:57100 [music] people. If the curve isn't
135. 4:59very steep, say around the 42nd
136. 5:01percentile, [music] this simplification
137. 5:03works okay. We know that each of these
138. 5:05percentiles actually represents as many
139. 5:07[music] as 3.4 million individuals, or
140. 5:10more likely 1.3 million households. But
141. 5:13it's okay because it's easy to see the
142. 5:15difference between them money-wise isn't
143. 5:17all that much. We're simplifying things
144. 5:19by using the average and representing
145. 5:21this range with one individual. But
146. 5:23there's really millions of [music]
147. 5:24people hidden somewhere in this single
148. 5:27percentile. The average is somewhere in
149. 5:29between the two ends, a little lower
150. 5:31than halfway
151. 5:32>> [music]
152. 5:32>> thanks to the downward curve. Even as
153. 5:34the curve gets steeper, say around the
154. 5:3687th percent, the average is still
155. 5:38somewhere in between two values that
156. 5:40aren't drastically [music] different
157. 5:41from one another. But at the top of the
158. 5:43curve, at the very top 1%, things are
159. 5:45different. We know the average 1%er has
160. 5:48around $40 million
161. 5:50and that the lowest person has around
162. 5:51$13 million. But we also know that the
163. 5:53very top is Elon Musk and he's got more
164. 5:56than $800 billion.
165. 5:58So the range involved in the 1% is very,
166. 6:01very big. If we'd simplified our
167. 6:03population to a thousand instead of a
168. 6:05hundred people, the 0.1%er would be the
169. 6:07highest average representing a hundred
170. 6:09and thirty-six thousand households. If
171. 6:11the curve was straight, our average 1%er
172. 6:14would be in the middle. And our 0.1%er
173. 6:16would be just 1/10 from the top. But the
174. 6:18curve is definitely [music] not straight
175. 6:20and as it bows down, the average person
176. 6:23gets closer to the bottom along with
177. 6:25most of the other people. In fact, it's
178. 6:27brutally exponential such that even the
179. 6:290.01% and the 0.001%
180. 6:32move quite a ways downward [music] from
181. 6:34Mr. Musk. No, even further than that.
182. 6:37Our curve is so terribly bent that the
183. 6:39average 1% person is actually way at the
184. 6:41bottom of the 1% range. His 40 million
185. 6:44is way down here with the vast majority
186. 6:47of the 1%ers. But there are still plenty
187. 6:49of people with much more than the
188. 6:51average 1%. [music]
189. 6:53So much more it's actually hard to
190. 6:55visualize at this scale. You see, if I
191. 6:57had subdivided the wealth by a
192. 6:59representative 1,000 people instead of a
193. 7:01hundred, the 0.1%'s wealth is a hundred
194. 7:04and eighty-four million dollars,
195. 7:06considerably [music] more than the
196. 7:07average 1%er. If we were to divide each
197. 7:09of those people by ten more, the 0.01%
198. 7:12guy [music] at the far right has a
199. 7:14staggering $971
200. 7:16million,
201. 7:17which is a hundred and ninety-four of
202. 7:19these [music] columns of cash, more than
203. 7:21I can stack on even one screen. And of
204. 7:23course, if we were to even consider the
205. 7:25billionaire class with an average net
206. 7:28worth of five billion dollars, that
207. 7:30would be about ten screens worth of
208. 7:32stacked cash at this scale. And again,
209. 7:34that's just the average among the
210. 7:36billionaire class. The top billionaire,
211. 7:38Elon Musk, well he has more than 1,600
212. 7:42screens worth of stacked bills, more
213. 7:44than 800 billion dollars. [music] So,
214. 7:46just to review, I've restacked the 1%
215. 7:49money to the right to fit them on our
216. 7:50chart, because if we [music] keep it in
217. 7:52one stack, it would literally be more
218. 7:54than eight screens tall to get to 40
219. 7:56million. But remember, that's only the
220. 7:58average of the 1%, which is [music]
221. 8:00actually on the very low end of the
222. 8:02range for the 1%. The 0.1% would be
223. 8:05almost [music] 37 screens high, and the
224. 8:080.01% at an even faster climb, would
225. 8:11still be a ridiculous 195 screens.
226. 8:14[music] For the billionaire class, we
227. 8:16don't have time. It would take almost a
228. 8:18minute to climb that high. So, I'm fast
229. 8:20[music] forwarding ahead. And for the
230. 8:22very top of the chart, we have to skip
231. 8:24again. It would take us more than 2
232. 8:26hours to climb that high. And this is
233. 8:28just 800 billion, 160,000 screens high.
234. 8:33So, the irony is, the original average
235. 8:351% that we got so mad at before, he's
236. 8:39actually closer to the bottom
237. 8:40percentile, this guy with no wealth,
238. 8:43than he is to the billionaires. It's a
239. 8:45bit hard to fathom, I know.
240. 8:48I've spent a lot of time trying to get
241. 8:49my own head around it, and it still
242. 8:51makes my head and my heart hurt a
243. 8:54little.
244. 8:55We really do need to talk about
245. 8:57billionaires. It's painfully clear that
246. 8:59wealth inequality in this country is
247. 9:01[music] absolutely terrible. Yes, wealth
248. 9:04concentration is even worse today than
249. 9:06it was 13 years ago. In fact, it hasn't
250. 9:09been this bad since the Gilded Age of
251. 9:11the 1920s, [music]
252. 9:12back when words like robber barons were
253. 9:15used to describe the ultra-rich. We've
254. 9:17been experiencing outrageous inequality
255. 9:19[music]
256. 9:19for more than 20 years. Here's a fairly
257. 9:22famous chart, updated with the last few
258. 9:24years included. It's worse than [music]
259. 9:26ever now, and it's getting worse all the
260. 9:29time. But it doesn't have to be this
261. 9:31way. We've actually been here before.
262. 9:33Back in the 1920s, this level of
263. 9:35inequality led to the worst recession
264. 9:38this country has ever seen. But we
265. 9:40adjusted the top marginal tax rates
266. 9:42[music] to make the ultra-wealthy pay
267. 9:43their fair share. We instituted many
268. 9:46other new policies. As a country, we
269. 9:48gained some [music] really great things
270. 9:50as a result. Social Security for one,
271. 9:52minimum wage, protections for workers,
272. 9:55half measures in some cases, but still
273. 9:57much-needed corrections to a [music]
274. 9:59gross imbalance. Policies that gave more
275. 10:02and more people a lifeline and a real
276. 10:04chance at the American dream. Most
277. 10:06people who saw my old wealth video
278. 10:08[music] just wanted to know how much
279. 10:09worse it is today. And it is worse, just
280. 10:12not in a way that you can easily see
281. 10:14from the basic charts or curves. Those
282. 10:16look about the same, which is obviously
283. 10:19still extremely bad. But the way it is
284. 10:21worse today, 13 years later, is at the
285. 10:24very tippy top. The billionaires that we
286. 10:26weren't even showing in the original
287. 10:28video. The ones that were hidden in our
288. 10:30simplification of a hundred people. The
289. 10:32oligarchs now have so much money we not
290. 10:35only can't fit them on our chart, we
291. 10:37need multiple screens [music] just to
292. 10:39see their wealth. In some cases,
293. 10:41thousands of screens. In a land of
294. 10:43plenty, why should more than half the
295. 10:45country struggle so much just to make
296. 10:48ends [music] meet? Why should the
297. 10:49American dream only be possible for a
298. 10:51small few and an unlikely hurdle for
299. 10:54most? [music] If we're going to survive
300. 10:55the next hundred years or even the next
301. 10:58several decades, we really have to make
302. 11:00things better. It's [music] time to wake
303. 11:02up so we can somehow begin to dream
304. 11:05again.