US companies are raking in record profits, as the average American struggles to make ends meet with rising consumer prices.

There is a lot of talk of inflation, but US corporate profit margins have reached their widest since 1950, squeezing profits out of Americans with rampant price-gouging.  The median household income in the United States has barely budged in nearly a decade, even as the richest Americans have managed to hoard more wealth than any time since the Gilded Age, maybe more.

According to the Statista Research Department, in “the first quarter of 2022, 69.1 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.8 percent of the total wealth.”

The United States has the highest level of income inequality of any developed country and there is a widening gulf between the rich and the poor. 

The average worker in the United States is now taking home a smaller share of the economy’s pie than at any time since the end of World War II. The top 1 percent of Americans now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent and the richest 400 Americans now own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. 

Photo by Timon Studler from Unsplash