A Fairly Dramatic, 12 Year Drop in Wealth Inequality

File under facts you won't hear because they aren't upsetting.

Since 2Q 2011, the wealth held by Americans in the bottom 50% of households has gone up from $262 billion to $4.5 trillion - so 17X more.

By contrast, the wealth held by the top 1% only went up 3X.

It is now $45 trillion.

That's fairly dramatic progress in wealth inequality. The top 1% used to have nearly 60X as much wealth as the bottom 50%. Now they have only 10X as much.

And if you think, "Well, that's hardly perfect," I'll remind you that before the Enlightenment philosophers came along with their "how do we make progress?" inquiry, we had a period when it was perfection and not improvement that was the goal. We now refer to that period as "the Dark Ages."