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Monday, 9 September 2013

Income Gap Widens As Top 400 Get Richer

By Cornelius Nunev


The income gap between the rich elite and the shrinking class is wider than it was a year ago. According to Forbes, most of the 400 wealthiest people in the nation saw their net worth increase since this time in 2011.

Richer prosperous

The magazines released its annual report on September 19. It discovered that the net worth of the nation's 400 wealthiest citizens grew by $1.7 trillion over the last year. That is an increase of 13 percent. Combined, the net worth of the elite 400 is the equivalent of 12.5 percent of the country's economy, according to NBC News.

There has also been a rise in the average net worth of each of the 400. It has grown to $4.2 billion per person.

There was an increase in income for 261 of the 400, mostly as a result of rebounding real estate market and stock growth.

The usual suspects

The list contained familiar and anticipated names. The rankings of the top five remained unchanged from 2011, although their net worth had risen: Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, Charles and David Koch (tied for fourth) and Christie Walton.

During the last year, Buffett saw his worth rise by $7 billion, which is the same growth as Bill Gates at the top of the list. Gates' fortune is not at $66 billion, and he has been on the top of the list for 19 years. A larger increase was seen with Larry Ellison who saw an $8 billion boost in his net worth.

Not everyone succeeds

A notable exception to the trend of increasing net worth was social network mogul Mark Zuckerberg, who lost nearly half of his net worth after his cash cow Facebook went public. This year, he is scraping by on $9.4 billion.

More of gap than people want

In 1961, the top one percent of earners in the country made 125 times more than the typical middle-income household. In 2010, that number jumped to 288 percent compared to the average middle-income earner. During the last century, the gap between the rich and the poor has more than doubled, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

The income of most Americans has declined in recent decades, according to the study. However, as we have seen, the worth of the rich elite continues to climb.

The Economic Policy Institute report learned that the gap was increased a ton since the Great Recession started, in spite of the belief that it has been occurring for a long time.




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