The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday published a report showing that the richest 1% of Americans now hold one-third of the country’s wealth, Common Dreams reports.
The CBO released a report titled Trends in the Distribution of Family Wealth, 1989 to 2019, showing that the wealth of U.S. families tripled over those three decades but the growth has largely gone to the richest families.
"Families in the top 10% and in the top 1% of the distribution, in particular, saw their share of total wealth rise over the period," the report says. "In 2019, families in the top 10% of the distribution held 72% of total wealth, and families in the top 1% of the distribution held more than one-third; families in the bottom half of the distribution held only 2% of total wealth."
Racial gap:
The report also highlighted the persistent racial wage gap.
The CBO found that white families’ median wealth is about 6.5 times that of Black families, 5.5 times that of Hispanic families, and 2.7 times that of Asian families.
The report also highlighted that student debt is the largest share of debt held by families in the bottom 25%, even more than mortgage and credit card debt combined.
Student debt makes up about 60% of the debt burden on Americans 35 or younger.
Sanders sounds alarm:
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said that the report “confirms what we already know: The very rich are getting much, much richer while the middle class is falling further and further behind, and being forced to take on outrageous levels of debt."
"The obscene level of income and wealth inequality in America is a profoundly moral issue that we cannot continue to ignore or sweep under the rug," Sanders said.
"A society cannot sustain itself when so few have so much while so many have so little," he added. "In the richest country on Earth, the time is long overdue for us to create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%."
