Top 300,000 have more than bottom 150 million (America, Zen)

[GeneCosta]

Almost.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/bu...Hnox4uG9EvjzOQ

The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.

[michel]

I can't say that I am surprized........when I saw the thread title, I knew this was going to be about money.

From:- http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre...rcePageId=7119

Property and Ownership

According to the World Bank, the UK accounts for around 5 per cent of global wealth (at least in terms of income). Its estimates for 2004 put global Gross Domestic Product at $40.89 trillion, with the UK, at $2.14 trillion, fourth richest behind the USA, Japan and Germany [1].
Nearly half of all shares are not held by individuals but instead belong to organisations such as pension funds, insurers and other financial institutions. At the end of 2004, individual UK citizens held only 14 per cent of UK shares, worth some £208 million [2]. In 1963, 54 per cent of UK shares was owned by individuals [3]. However this was a small number of individuals: personal share ownership has tripled over the last twenty years, but even so, three-quarters of households do not own shares [4].
Nearly three-quarters of dwellings in the UK are owner-occupied. Owner-owned homes represent 72.3 per cent of dwellings for 2003, compared to just 53.8 per cent in 1976. The proportion of owner-occupied property is highest in Northern Ireland at 75.3 per cent and lowest in Scotland at 64.3 per cent, although the latter figure represents almost a doubling in the proportion of Scottish owner-occupied dwellings since 1976 [5]. Owning one’s own home is more common in the UK than in most of Europe and North America [6].
23 per cent of wealth is owned by 1 per cent of the population. The wealthiest 10 per cent own more than half the wealth in the UK; the wealthiest 50 per cent own 94 per cent of wealth. Statistics show that the wealthy have got wealthier over the last ten years [7].



The site is worth having a look at;

CountryMin. Wage ($US)% of GDPAustralia$362/week54% Belgium$1,500/month48%Finland $6.50/hour 34%France $9.18 51%Greece $34/day 42%Ireland $8/hour 32%Netherlands $1,507/month 47%New Zealand $6.45/hour 49%Portugal $452/month 30%Spain $592/month 26%UK $8.53/hour 45%USA $5.15/hour 25%