For one thing, it would mean the 2nd through 10th percentiles would own less than 1% of all the wealth. And that is ridiculous. Everybody in the top 10% is pretty damn wealthy.
According to Wikipedia:
In 2007 the richest 1% of the American population owned 34.6% of the country's total wealth, and the next 19% owned 50.5%. Thus, the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country's wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 15%. Financial inequality was greater than inequality in total wealth, with the top 1% of the population owning 42.7%, the next 19% of Americans owning 50.3%, and the bottom 80% owning 7%.[7] However, after the Great Recession which started in 2007, the share of total wealth owned by the top 1% of the population grew from 34.6% to 37.1%, and that owned by the top 20% of Americans grew from 85% to 87.7%. The Great Recession also caused a drop of 36.1% in median household wealth but a drop of only 11.1% for the top 1%, further widening the gap between the 1% and the 99%.[7][8][9]
They cite three different sources for these numbers. I don't know the reliability of the sources, yet the numbers sound plausible. Somewhere else I heard the bottom 50% owns about 3% of the wealth, though it may have said 3% of the income and I misremembered.
I'm a big fan of the 80-20 rule (20% of one thing gives you 80% of another thing, and 80% of the one thing gives you 20% of the other), aka the Pareto Principle. In fact, here's what Wikipedia says about the Pareto Principle: "The original observation was in connection with population and wealth. Pareto noticed that 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population.[4] He then carried out surveys on a variety of other countries and found to his surprise that a similar distribution applied."
Having the top 20% own 87.7% of the wealth seems historically . . . um, . . . bad.
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