According to World Inequality Lab (WID) data, the United States has become the most unequal country, surpassing in 2007 the inequality peak recorded in 1928. The ‘superrich’ of the US, or the group of people belonging to the top 1% of income in the US, now hold 20% of the country’s national income up from 11% of the national income in 1980.
At the same time, there has been a dramatic collapse in the income share of the bottom 50%, which had 21% of income in 1980, falling to 13% in 2016 (see Figure 13).