Mainstream media
Mainstream media sources trace the origin of the phrase to economist Joseph Stiglitz's May 2011 article "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" in "Vanity Fair", in which he was criticizing the economic inequality present in the United States. In the article Stiglitz spoke of the damaging impact of economic inequality involving 1% of the U.S. population owning a large portion of economic wealth in the country, while 99% of the population hold much less economic wealth than the richest 1%: