US economic inequality: Walmart family now worth more than 100 million Americans

Nicholas Kristof, writing in the New York Times, explored the new book, The Price of Inequality, by the Chairman of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors, Joseph Stiglitz. Among that book's revelations:

• the top 1 percent possesses a greater collective worth than the entire bottom 90 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington
• The six heirs of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, own as much wealth as the bottom 100 million Americans
• In 2010, 93 percent of the gain in national income went to the top 1 percent
• America’s Gini coefficient, the classic measure of inequality, set a modern record last month — the highest since the Great Depression
• the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington estimates that four major tax breaks that encourage excessive corporate pay cost taxpayers $14.4 billion last year. And 26 chief executives received more in pay last year than their companies paid in total federal corporate income taxes
• the US enjoyed strong growth in the 1950s, even though the top income tax rate exceeded 90%.
• Only in 1987 did that top bracket dip below 50 percent
• A study published last year by scholars from Harvard Business School and Duke University asked Americans which (unlabeled) country they would rather live in — one with America’s wealth distribution or one with Sweden’s. Ninety percent chose Sweden

Stiglitz concludes that the US is paying a high price for its economic inequality — less stability, efficiency, growth and employment