Números das desigualdades na distribuição da riqueza nos EUA...

...no artigo de Leon Friedman, "Inequality Counts", na "The Nation" (via "Bem Haja").

Atenção: os valores reportam-se à distribuição de riqueza (que inclui propriedade, acções, etc.), não apenas de salários, dando por isso uma imagem mais real das desigualdades.

"The latest report [do Survey of Consumer Finances elaborado pelo Federal Reserve Board] examined the distribution of wealth in 2004 and makes detailed comparisons showing the change in wealth among various population groups. It notes the following: The total net worth of all Americans in 1989 was $25 trillion (in 2004 dollars). Of that amount, the top 1 percent owned 30 percent, or $7.775 trillion. The bottom half owned 3 percent of the total, or $763 billion.
Fifteen years later, in 2004, the total wealth of all Americans had doubled to $50.25 trillion. The top 1 percent of the population now owns 33.4 percent of the total, or $16.774 trillion. Their percentage share of the total has increased by more than 3 percent in fifteen years. At the same time, the total wealth owned by the bottom 50 percent increased to $1.278 trillion, but its percentage of total wealth declined from 3 percent to 2.5 percent in the same time period.
Thus the wealth of the top 1 percent was ten times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent in 1989. Fifteen years later, the wealth of the top 1 percent was thirteen times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent.
Examining the type of wealth owned by each group, the SCF reports that the top 5 percent of the population owns 85 percent of closely held business assets in the country, 79 percent of the publicly traded stocks and 70 percent of mutual funds (...) According to the SCF, the bottom 50 percent own less than 1 percent of business assets, stocks and mutual funds".

A explicação para isto?

Beginning with the reduction of income tax rates in the Reagan Administration (from a high of 70 percent for the richest taxpayers in 1980 to 35 percent now), Congress has steadily reduced tax rates. It has reduced and is seeking to eliminate the estate tax altogether. In 2003 Congress lowered the tax on dividends to 15 percent, rather than treat it as ordinary income subject to the highest tax rate of 35 percent. It also reduced taxes on capital gains from 20 percent to 15 percent. Necessarily, these changes greatly benefited the households at the top of the wealth ladder.

De onde vem boa parte do dinheiro?

"If the government has a program of tax reductions for the wealthiest, necessarily this leads to budget shortfalls and then a decrease in welfare payments to the people at the bottom. Where else could this money come from? Certainly not from military expenditures. Congress passed a budget resolution last year that cut $10 billion in Medicaid programs, $3 billion from food stamps and $7 billion from student loan programs. The House has passed new resolutions this year calling for even greater reductions in these programs."

Não há dúvida que Galbraith estava certo quando escreveu que “the modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness”.

P.S. - Não tenho números à mão que permitam uma comparação mais fiável, mas no seu impressionante estudo "Les hauts revenus en France au XXe siècle : Intégralités et redistributions, 1901-1998" (2001, primeira edição; 2006, edição poche), Thomas Piketty (EHESS) - que, aos 35 anos, é provavelmente o melhor economista francês a pensar à esquerda a interligação entre desigualdades, redistribuição e fiscalidade - calcula que em França o decil dos 10% mais ricos, detinha, em 1998 (e não é expectável que sofrido grandes alterações de então para cá; é antes de assumir uma estabilidade que já vinha da década anterior: em 1988 os valores eram sensivelmente os mesmos) - e atenção, isto são valores declarados, ainda não sujeitos a imposto -, cerca de 32% da riqueza nacional*. No caso norte-americano, como vimos, em 2004, só o percentil (1%) mais rico detém 33.4% do total! Resumindo, o 1% mais rico dos norte-americanos detém uma maior fatia da riqueza nacional do que os 10% mais ricos em França.

* Ver gráfico 2.6, página 190 da edição poche.