6:400:150,000,000

A group called Being Liberal shared this graphic earlier this week. It's received lots of likes and shares, but not so much discussion.  

I wonder if this mean the information shared is accepted as fact? Or that so-called "Liberals" don't mind it so much that some people are very rich?

It wasn't hard to find the source for this meme, though I'm not an economist or a mathematician, so I'm content to take Robert Reich's word for the numbers, since I believe that's where the creator of this meme got them.  

In this article for the San Francisco Chronicle, from Christmas day, 2011, Reich wrote, 

"So the 400 richest Americans, whose total wealth exceeds the combined wealth of the bottom 150 million Americans put together . . . " 

The Internal Revenue Service has a website which provides lots and lots of reports, several of which have to do with the top 400 earners in the United States.  If you care to peruse those reports and dispute Reich's stats, please feel free to do so -- it is beyond my ken.  

Much easier to consider the question posed by the meme:  What do the top 400 American earners do for a living?  (The question of worth, as it relates to money, is fraught with subjectives too complex to address here.  Many people provide valuable services and are not compensated financially at all, perhaps most notably stay-at-home parents and homemakers.)

Forbes Magazine makes it simple to answer the question.

Here's the most recent list of America's top 400 richest individuals, including brief biographical sketches. The list provides the source of each individual's fortune and does indeed make for interesting reading.

Bill Gates is the richest man in America.  Warren Buffet is number 2.  Michael Bloomberg is number 10.  Mark Zuckerberg is 26.  Donald Trump is 128.  Robert Kraft is 206.

So I'll leave you peruse the list and make your own value judgements.

BUT I do feel compelled to share the fact that I counted no fewer than four members of the Walton family in the top 10.  

Here is an interesting article on that subject, if you care to read more.