For the most part, the corporate press, caught up in their euphoria over this bubble economy, has ignored the reality on the ground. But the wealthiest households reaped most of the gains. Since the mid-1970s, the top 1 percent of households have doubled their share of the national wealth. The top 1 percent of U.S. households now have more wealth than the entire bottom 95 percent. The top 1 percent of households control 40 percent of the wealth.
Financial wealth is even more concentrated.
Microsoft CEO Bill Gates owns more wealth than the bottom 45 percent of American households combined. The boom has been a bust for millions of Americans. Workers are earning less, adjusting for inflation, than they did when Richard Nixon was president. Average weekly wages for workers in 1998 were 12 percent below 1973, adjusting for inflation. Productivity grew nearly 33 percent in the same period.