Wealth Inequality Is MUCH Worse Than You Realize

A YouTube video that went viral this weekend shows that Americans radically underestimate income disparity in the U.S.

The video, created by user politizane, displays graphics made from data in a Harvard Business School survey that asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the U.S. and what the ideal distribution is, then compared those answers to what it actually looks like.

The study found that the top 1 percent (of Occupy Wall Street infamy) "has more of the country's wealth than nine out of ten Americans believe the entire top 20 percent should have."

Politizane presents the distribution in a way that makes the study's findings astoundingly clear.

The video takes America's $54 trillion in wealth (as of 2009) and distributes it to the entire U.S. population, represented as 100 people in a line.

For example, this is what socialism would look like:

Here's what most Americans believe is ideal:

What Americans think the reality is:

And what distribution actually is (Note: the 97-99 percentiles didn't even fit on this chart, while the top 1 percent had to be divided into ten columns):

Politizane points out that the top 1 percent own 40 percent of U.S. wealth, takes home nearly a quarter (24 percent) of the national income, and owns half of the country's stocks bonds and mutual funds.

Meanwhile the bottom 80 percent own just 7 percent of America's wealth, while the average worker has to work for a month to earn what the CEO makes in an hour.

The video concludes that "all we need to do is wake up and realize that the reality in this country is not at all what we think it is."

Check it out: