Research finds $79,000,000,000,000 has been redistributed from bottom 90% of Americans to top 1% over the last five decades

A recent study on economic inequality revealed that 90 per cent of US workers could have earned $79 trillion over five decades.

You would think that in 2025, most societies would be heading towards a more equal economic future, however, this doesn’t appear to be the case.

RAND, an American nonprofit global policy think tank and research institute, had previously found that roughly $47 trillion earned by the bottom 90 per cent of American workers between 1975 and 2018 was instead given to the 1 per cent in 2018 dollars.

However, following a recent update to encompass the numbers from 2023, their latest analysis points to an even more dire outlook.

As for what caused this growth in economic inequality, the study's author highlights three factors, namely economic growth, rising inflation and the share of income going towards that 90 per cent declining.

The new study shows the wealth distribution between the bottom 90 per cent and 1 per cent of workers (Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

According to this new analysis, inflation has roughly accounted for $10 trillion of the growth.

Citing information from the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Gross Domestic Product (GPD) in 2023 was 15 times higher compared to 1975, and was 27 per cent larger than in 2018.

With the growth of inequality over the last few decades, the bottom 90 per cent went from receiving two thirds of all taxable income to 49.53 and 46.83 per cent in 2015 and 2019, meaning the top 10 per cent received a share of income three per cent larger over the span of four years.

The author concluded that if we had the same income distribution as in 1975, the majority of workers could have received an extra $3.9 trillion in 2023.

US senator Bernie Sanders highlighted this data in a press release at the beginning of March, adding that the massive wealth distribution was 'profoundly damaging to our democracy'.

Bernie Sanders recently brought attention to the recent analysis by RAND (Chet Strange/Getty Images)

In a statement, Sanders said: “Over and over again, my Republican colleagues have expressed their deep concern about the redistribution of wealth in America, and they are right.

“The problem is that it has gone in precisely the wrong direction. Since 1975, nearly $80 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%."

He also highlighted that that the figure of $3.9 trillion would be enough to give every full-time worker in the bottom 90 per cent a raise of $32,000 a year raise.

Sanders went on to say that the US cannot provide 'another $1.1 trillion tax break to the top 1%' through means such as 'making massive cuts to healthcare, housing, education and nutrition assistance as President Trump and Republicans in Congress want to do'.

"We must do the exact opposite.” he said.

Since his return to the White House, Trump has made cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Department of Education, which saw 50 per cent of its staff without a job.

Not only that, but Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been tasked with the goal of cutting back government spending - with the agency alleging that they'd saved $65 billion.

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