NEW STUDY: Nearly $80 Trillion Redistributed from the Bottom 90% to the Top 1% Since 1975

Here are the key highlights from the RAND Corporation report:

~ Since 1975, $79 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1% in the United States. This represents the cumulative cost of lost wages to workers below the 90th percentile due to rising inequality from 1975 through 2023. Average real income in the top 1% grewby 321.6 percent from 1975 through 2018, nearly three times the 118 percent growth of real per capita GDP over the same period.

~ In 2023 alone, $3.9 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. This represents the difference between what the bottom 90% of workers earned in 2023 compared to what they would have earned had income distributions remained at the more equitable 1975 levels.

~ $3.9 trillion would be enough to give every full-time worker in the bottom 90% a raise of $32,000 a year raise. For perspective, $3.9 trillion is equivalent to 14% of the entire US economy.

~ Working Americans have seen their share of taxable income steadily fall for 50 years. In 1975, the bottom 90% of workers received 67% all taxable income. By 2019, their share had fallen below 47% — a three point drop since just 2015.

~ Median household income would be double what it is today if income inequality had remained the same as it was in 1975.