Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and business magnate Warren Buffett — the three richest people in the world — are as wealthy as the bottom half of the U.S. population combined, according to a report from the Institute for Policy Studies.
The poorest 50 percent of America amounts to roughly 160 million people or 63 million households.
America’s top 25 billionaires have as much wealth as 56 percent of the population, equivalent to 178 million people or 70 million households, accordingto the Institute for Policy Studies’ report.
The 400 richest people in the U.S. have a combined wealth of $2.68 trillion and collectively have more than the gross domestic product of Britain, the study found. Furthermore, that group owns more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the U.S. population (240 million people or 80 million households). This is more people than Canada and Mexico have combined.
“The elite ranks of our billionaire class continue to pull apart from the rest of us,” the study’s conclusion reads. “We have not witnessed such extreme levels of concentrated wealth and power since the first Gilded Age a century ago. Such staggering levels of wealth inequality threaten our democracy, compound racial and class divisions, undermine social cohesion, and destabilize our economy.”
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