If the top 10% of Americans own 80% of the wealth, does that mean 1 in 10 people I see on the street have significantly more money than me?
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Kindof depends on where you live. If you’re in Brewton, AL then probably not. It also depends on how much money you have. If you are barely scraping by, then it is likely more than 1 in 10 in most places. A homeless person is likely to meet 9 out of 10 people with more money than they have at any given time.
That’s the problem with statistics. They don’t really capture the specifics of individual situations. In reality, that top 10% is stratified also, with the top 10% of them owning a larger portion of the wealth than the bottom 10%.
Finally, wealth isn’t exactly the same as money. Most really wealthy people have most of their wealth tied up in real estate and other investments (so they can make even more money) and don’t normally have a lot of cash lying around. This is why non-wealthy people talk about how much money they have (for example, in the bank or a big roll of cash in their pocket) while wealthy people speak of their net worth…that takes into account all of the non-monetary things that contribute to their wealth.
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