The age-old adage “the rich get richer” lives on as the new Forbes Richest Americans list shows that the 400 wealthiest Americans now have over $2 trillion.
While headlines of food insecurity and increased SNAP usage continue, America’s engine for income inequality is evidently chugging right along. In fact, the rich have been getting so rich that just to make it onto the Forbes list, one must now be worth $1.3 billion (the highest requirement since immediately before Lehman’s downfall). Furthermore, sixty-three U.S. billionaires couldn’t make the list and twenty-eight dropped off from last year with only a few of them actually losing money.
Amid the Federal Reserve’s stimulus boosting the stock market, those top 400 have added $300 billion to their collective wealth in just one year. Thankfully their is some silver lining to all this for the rest of the country as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have combined to donate $40 billion to charity. Of course, we also have this from T. Boone Pickens who was booted off the list this year.
.@darrenrovell Don’t worry. At $950 million, I’m doing fine. Funny, my $1 billion charitable giving exceeds my net worth. @Forbes @RMac18
— T. Boone Pickens (@boonepickens) September 16, 2013
via: Floatingpath
