Writing for the outlet, Andrew Lisa explained that Americans hold a combined $160.35 trillion in wealth. To the average person, that sounds like quite the payday, but someone in the top 1% probably wouldn’t see it that way. According to Lisa, “The bottom 50% of the country shares less than 3% of that enormous pie, while the most fortunate 10% gorge on nearly all of it.”
There are approximately 340.11 million people in the U.S. If they all shared that $160.35 trillion, each person would come away with $471,465. Not only is that more than the average person could even imagine, but it only compounds when you consider how it would add up for families. For example, a couple would hold a combined $942,930, and a family of four would have $1.89 million. Because, of course, in an ideal world, wealth would be distributed evenly regardless of age.
If you take all the wealth in an area and split it evenly among that populace there is no “upwards” - everyone is equal in terms of wealth. Money funnels “upward” because of wealth disparity, if someone owns more wealth than the average person than on average some of the average person’s money goes to that wealthier person in the form of rent or interest on debt or profits from the factory or what have you.
If all wealth was distributed this way it would look like everyone owning their own home and a portion of their place of work and their car, etc etc. I’m not saying money wouldn’t pool again over time, or that a new upwards wouldn’t be established, but I don’t think you phrased it fairly. The way you said it felt to me like an assumed hierarchy of better people and worse people - when in reality it’s just wealthy people and not wealthy people.
I feel like equitability needs to factor in, somewhere.