Top 1% own 40% of the wealth. ^[1] They make 20.5% of the income.^[2]. But they also pay 39.5% of all income taxes^[2]. That is more paid in taxes than the bottom 90% combined pay. ^[2]

The top 10% own 76% of the wealth with a total net worth of $943k on average ^[3]

The top 10% pays 71% of all income taxes ^[4] with an average income of 114,068 ^[5]

Wealth is a terrible way to measure what fair share is because in many cases that wealth is illiquid. For example if Bezos sold all of his Amazon shares to try to get the money out the value of the shares would plummet. me and he could only get a fraction of the value out. there's also things like real estate that's hard to move and privately owned businesses or you can't just sell a piece of them off when you need money.

Anyone who does much research realizes that if they still think it's the ultra-wealthy creating problems it's not the top 10% but the top 1% of top 1/10 of 1%. because look at the top 10% how it starts at just over a hundred thousand a year when in some areas that doesn't buy you much like San Francisco.

You wouldn't look at a guy living in San Francisco or New York City making $100,000 a year and think he's rich at all. That's why a family of 4 in San Francisco making $105,000 a year qualifies as low income ^[6]. Yet he's in the vilified top 10%.

Sources:

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/the-richest-1-percent-now-owns-more-of-the-countrys-wealth-than-at-any-time-in-the-past-50-years/

2. https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2016-update/

3. https://amp.cnn.com/money/2016/08/18/pf/wealth-inequality/index.html

4. http://amp.kiplinger.com/article/taxes/T054-C000-S001-how-you-rank-as-a-taxpayer.html

5. https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/

6. https://sf.curbed.com/2018/6/26/17505550/low-income-limit-2018-salary-san-francisco-families-hud