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user-inactivated · 4496 days ago · link · · parent · post: Politifact discusses Sen. Bernie Sander's claim that the Waltons own more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans.
- "Wealth is always more unequally distributed than income," Worstall wrote. "By the way, it isn’t even true that all of those households with zero or negative wealth are what we would call poor, either."
I don't believe that Sander's claim about these 49 million people being poor. Having more wealth doesn't mean you are a better person either. But Worstall managed to leave that derail out of his opinion. Don't get me wrong ... I'm all for balanced reporting. But 49 million people's wealth versus five?
I agree it's not a very clear measure of well-being. But that's not even 49M people, he's saying 49 million families. Since the US has ~310M people 40% is about 124M people's wealth vs. 5.
According to the 2012 Census, about 46M Americans live in poverty. IMO Sanders could have just compared those two groups and made a clearer point.