A report released on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center
found that the wealth gap between the country’s top 20 percent of
earners and the rest of America had stretched to its widest point in at
least three decades.
Last
year, the median net worth of upper-income families reached $639,400,
nearly seven times as much of those in the middle, and nearly 70 times
the level of those at the bottom of the income ladder.
There
has been growing attention to the issue of income inequality,
particularly the plight of those earning the federal minimum wage of
$7.25 an hour or close to it.
But
while income and wealth are related (the more you make, the more you
can save and invest), the wealth gap zeros in on a different aspect of
financial well-being: how much money and other assets you have
accumulated over time, including the value of your home and car plus any
investments in stocks, bonds and the like.
Think
of it as “a measure of the family ‘nest egg,’ ” as Pew calls it — a
hoard that can sustain a household during an emergency, like the loss of
a job, and in the long run can see someone through retirement.
Read Fueled by Recession, U.S. Wealth Gap Is Widest in Decades, Study Finds - NYTimes.com
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