Let's accumulate ALL statistics regarding wealth ownership/distribution

[RooseveltTruman]

After a frustrating conversation regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement, I felt it might be a good idea to start a post here to aggregate ALL of the statistics regarding wealth distribution and wealth ownership in the U.S. today. Like many of you, I've seen a LOT of these statistics around the web, and it's hard to keep track of them all. I feel it might be a good idea to have a place where all of them are culled together, so that we have them all at our fingertips the next time a debate breaks out.

To be clear, I'm looking for statistics regarding
-Wealth ownership by the top 1-2%
-Total wealth of the top 1-2%
-The wealth transfer that's taken place since 1980 and Reagan coming into power.
-Wealth inequality in America
-Wealth inequality in America as compared to other nations
-Wealth ownership of the majority
Any and all statistics that may be even tangentially related.

Sources would also be nice.

Also, I plan on posting all that I can find, as well. I'm not trying to "use" anybody without putting in some legwork myself. I just think an aggregate post of these stats would be really helpful to anyone who's encountered individuals who are unaware of how they're being screwed.

[Scuba]

1. Hope you have a big hard drive. n/t

[RooseveltTruman]

2. Here's the first stat; I'm hoping this become a big, hopping topic

According to 2007 Federal Reserve data, "the top 1 percent held 48.4 percent of non-home wealth, compared to 20 percent for the bottom 95 percent. For the second straight survey, in fact, the concentration of wealth increased."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/01/michael-moore/moore-says-top-1-percent-owns-more-financial-wealt/

[FarCenter]

3. Here are some references

Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

(Jun 10, 2011) - T11-0172 - Income Breaks for the 2011 Tax Model (0411 Series), 2004-2022
http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=3047

Income Percentiles, Top 1/4.
http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=2362

Income seems pretty clear, but I think that wealth in terms of household assets is a lot fuzzier. My take would be that around $20,000,000 puts you at the threshold of the 1%. However, you are now talking about enough assets that the owners can start to hire advisors, lawyers and accountants to start hiding asset both here and abroad. You also have to get into things like trusts, so that you can define assest in terms of any asset in which the person has a beneficial interest.

There are some statistics about inheritance tax and estate sizes, but it wasn't obvious how to interpret them. The top 1% of estates paying taxes was around $120,000,000. However, the percentage of estates that are taxes is very low, so that is not the 1 percentile of all estates.

[ChillbertKChesterton]

5. These are great

[ChillbertKChesterton]

4. I think DU would do great to have a charts/graphs/statistics megathread or subforum

something stickied and long-term to use a repository and reference for data quickly and easily during discussions with people who deny reality.

[ngant17]

6. Gini coefficient

I would guess that the Gini coefficient calculates most of those variables for you. The fact that it isn't used much here in the US tends to convince me of its validity.

I believe that you can use census data to calculate the Gini index.

There are also a number of other methods to calculate economic inequality besides Gini.

[RooseveltTruman]

7. Excellent idea; here's more about GINI coefficient

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality According to the 2007 CIA GINI estimate, the United States is between the Ivory Coast and Uruguay in wealth distribution. This is the same statistic used during the Daily Show's segment on "World of Class Warfare" back in August.

While both are Wiki sites, the information used in the list checks out.