The Wrangell sentinel., 1924-04-17
THE POOR GROWING RICHER


 of the Uinted States is owned by 2 lper cent of the population has at Hast been subjected to as accurate la test of it's truth as is perhaps pos sible with available data. The statement as to the population per. Icentage of wealth ownership here lgivcn is not the one most often in the mouth of the corner orator or minimizing speaker who wants to spread sensation. The percentage of wealth runs in these wild utterances to 75 and S5 per cent. The 60-and-2 comparison is said to be traceable to a high authority, Dr. Milford I. King, but in this less extravagant form it varies from his original con Iclusion, which he now abandons. az having been been founded on insuf- ficient data.
 The new inquiry by responsible agency was undertaken by the bu- reau of econonomic research. using all available sources, and the re- suits are given by George E. Roberts. ivice-president of the National City Bank, in the Review of Reviews. The bureaus purpose is to make sci. entific search for economic facts as the first essential to discussion and adjustment of controversy Its board of directors originally com prised professors of economics of such repute as T. S. Adams of Yale, John R. Commons of Wisconsin, FL wood Mead of California, other econ- omists, labor editor. a champion of industrial democracy, a banker. manufacturer and an accountant. To these were added representatives of the American Federation of Labor, of economists, manufacturers, engi. neers, bankers, statisticians and farmers. The research staff con- sisted of five persons with Prof Wesley c. Mitchell as director and with Prof. King as a member in charge of one branch of the work Study was conducted on two parallel lines, on which results for any one year did not vary more than ' per cent, and final estimates were reach ed by splitting the difference. The work was submitted to all the direc- tors, each of whom approved it as whole.
 The best guide to determination of the proportion of the national in- come received by the rich and poor respectively is a table showing the number of persons receiving incomes of less and more than $2OOO respec- lively in each year from 1910 to 1919. The number receiving less than $2OO0 decreased from 34,352,- 900 in 1910 to 34,233,000 in 1919, while the aggregate amount they received grew from $9,90O,OO ,OOO to $25,200,O00,O Thus the num- Der in the s2OOO class decreased from 96 to S7 per cent and their share of the total decreased from 67 to 61 per cent, while the number in teh class above $20OO grew from 4 to 13 per cent and their share of the total grew from 33 to 39 per cent. AS to income, the well-to-do are more numerous.
 While the division of income and material wealth is not the same, the discrepancy between these figures and the ? per cent story raises a strong presumption that the latter is incorrect. Calculations of the national wealth have been made by Walter R. Ingalls,, author of a book on wealth and income. He has made calculations of the value of each class of wealth and, according to MT. Roberts, reaches the conclusion that at the maximum the richest 2 per cent. do not own over 46 per cent, the wealth and that the truth prob ably is between 46 and 25 per cent, most likely around 30 per cent"