A recent survey found rather surprising consensus between people on different part of the political spectrum if you asked them what an ideal wealth distribution would be. Overall, people thought the top 20% should ideally own about 32% of the wealth; liberals preferred 30%, while conservatives preferred 35%. People making over $100k/year were slightly more pro-inequality, but still only gave 40% as their ideal target. No demographic group gave anything close to the current proportion, which is around 83%, as their ideal target.
So it seems like "top 20% should own 35% of the wealth" is roughly the consensus of the vast majority of Americans, give or take 5%, across many demographic and political groups. Where they differ is what, if anything, we should do to make that happen.
So what would that actually mean? If you put everyone on the X axis in order of their income, with the Y axis representing income, what would the curve look like in order for the top 20% to own 30% of the wealth? And if you left this running, what would the total wealth graph look like after say 50 years?
The most conservative proposal from the survey splits the wealth at roughly 40:20:20:10:10. That means if we had an average representative of each of the 5 groups, they would each be worth 5* $175* (that group's percentage) = $350k : $175k : $175k : $87.5k : $87.5k
Meanwhile, the most liberal proposal was roughly 30:20:20:15:15 giving $262K : $175k : $175k : $131k : $131k
Heh, the fringe Scottish Socialist Party had a much maligned proposal to instate a wage cap of £250k (approximately $350k), which according to this study actually aligns with the conservative ideal. Just shows how firm a grasp of the statistics people have when it comes to this sort of thing.
So it seems like "top 20% should own 35% of the wealth" is roughly the consensus of the vast majority of Americans, give or take 5%, across many demographic and political groups. Where they differ is what, if anything, we should do to make that happen.
Source: http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely%20in%20pre...