Notes for "Another Shocking Wealth Grab by the Rich -- In Just One Year" (01/20/14)


1. Just 13 Americans Made More from Their Investments in 2013 than the Entire SNAP Budget

Forbes Data Summary:
 http://www.UsAgainstGreed.org/Forbes400_2011-13.xls
SNAP Links:
 http://www.obpa.usda.gov/budsum/FY14budsum.pdf (2014 SNAP budget of about $78.4 billion)
 http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/snapmain.htm (almost 50 million)


2. The Richest 400 took $300 Billion in 2013, Almost the Entire Safety Net

SNAP, WIC, Child Nutrition $107 billion
 http://www.obpa.usda.gov/budsum/FY14budsum.pdf
EITC $56 billion
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit
SSI $60 billion
 http://www.ssa.gov/budget/FY14Files/2014KT.pdf
TANF $17 billion
 https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/olab/sec3i_tanf_2014cj.pdf
Housing $46 billion
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget
More info at
 http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258
 http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3772


3. The Richest 12,000 Families Each Added $40 million to Their Fortunes

Stock Market Capitalization
 http://web.wilshire.com/Indexes/Broad/Wilshire5000/
 http://www.gurufocus.com/stock-market-valuations.php
  2012-13 Stock Market Capitalization: $4.7 trillion (From $15 trillion to $19.7 trillion)

U.S. Households: About 120 Million
 http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

Distribution of Stock Ownership across Households
 http://epi.3cdn.net/2a7ccb3e9e618f0bbc_3nm6idnax.pdf (Table 6)
  1% (1,200,000 households) took 38.3% of $4.7 trillion, or $1.8 trillion

Wealth Data from Kopczuk and Saez
 http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/estateshort.pdf (Table 2, p 452)
  Saez data indicates that:
   Average wealth of .1% (120,000 families) is about 4 times more than 1%
   Average wealth of .01% (12,000 families) is about 40 times more than 1%
    So it can be estimated that:
     The .01% made about $40 million each ($480 billion total)
     The rest of the .1% (108,000 families) made about $4 million each ($432 billion total)
     The rest of the 1% (1,068,000 families) made over $830,000 each ($888 billion total)

The 2-5%
 http://epi.3cdn.net/2a7ccb3e9e618f0bbc_3nm6idnax.pdf (Table 6)
  The 2-5% (4,800,000 households) took 30.9% of $4.7 trillion, or $1.45 trillion
   So each of the 2-5 percenters took a little over $300,000

The 6-10%
 http://epi.3cdn.net/2a7ccb3e9e618f0bbc_3nm6idnax.pdf (Table 6)
  The 6-10% (6,000,000 households) took 12.1%, or $568 billion
   So each of the 6-10 percenters took about $95,000

The 11-20%
 http://epi.3cdn.net/2a7ccb3e9e618f0bbc_3nm6idnax.pdf (Table 6)
  The 11-20% (12,000,000 households) took 9.9%, or $465 billion
   So each of the 11-20 percenters took about $39,000

The Bottom 80%
 http://epi.3cdn.net/2a7ccb3e9e618f0bbc_3nm6idnax.pdf (Table 6, Table 2)
  The bottom 80% (96,000,000 households) took 8.9%, or $418 billion
   The 21-40% (24,000,000 households) own about 75% of that, or $314 billion ($13,000 each)
   The 41-60% (24,000,000 households) own about 23% of that, or $96 billion ($4,000 each)
   The 61-80% (24,000,000 households) own about 2% of that, or $8 billion ($333 each)
   The bottom 20% (24,000,000 households) own 0% of that


4. The Richest 400 Individuals Own as much as Two-Thirds of America

 http://epi.3cdn.net/2a7ccb3e9e618f0bbc_3nm6idnax.pdf
  Table 2 shows that the lowest three quintiles owned 2.2% of the wealth in 2009.