This cartoon from The Seattle Times illustrates how America's economic pizza is actually sliced per capita, highlighting the massive disparity between the Top 1%, the merely wealthy, the upper middle class, and the lower 50%.

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[–] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

The top x% owning y% of combined wealth is a standard measure of wealth inequality. This is literally what the Lorenz curve describes and the basis for the well-known Gini coefficient.

That being said, the proportions in the comic aren't really in line with the figures I know. Wealth inequality is increasing in the US, but the wealth share of the top 1% currently is more like 33% (still bad but far away from the pizza example).

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    This cartoon does not use "top x% owning y% of combined wealth". It uses a per capita version which is very different from what you're talking about. And that's my entire point.

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