The #1 plot point that comes up again and again on Downton Abbey is that the 'rich' aristocrat family can't even afford to keep up the cost of their day to day lifestyle, and they only manage to fund it by marrying into money from America, miraculous unexpected wills, etc etc.

It's a show about the end of the period of great inequality, where rising incomes made it far more expensive to employ a team of servants.

So while this article is trying to make it sound like we should all be worried about how inequality is rising, being more unequal than 'Downton Abbey' is a pretty meaningless criterion.

As to the substance of the article, it's using a very arbitrary definition of inequality, looking at the % of total wealth controlled by the richest 0.01%. That is one in ten thousand rich.

It's also meaningless to talk about what share of the total wealth the bottom 90% of people had when comparing time periods so far from each other.

A single person today in the US who is considered below the poverty line makes around $11,000/yr before taxes. In 1911, to be in the same percentile of income that person would have been working 11 hours per day with one 30 minute break, 7 days per week, often in completely unregulated and dangerous conditions. There was no Social Security or unemployment insurance any other kind of safety net, which meant if you were injured during your mandatory 77 hour work week, which was incredibly likely sooner or later, or even if you were just sick or unable to work for any reason, you would have had no income. Having become sick or injured, you certainly would not be able to afford even the rudimentary and almost completely ineffective medical care which existed at that time.

To put it in perspective, someone working the same hours as their doppelgänger from 1911 (77 hours per week, 51 weeks per year), that hard worker living today, earning only minimum wage, would make around $29,000/yr. Whether they work 77 hours or 4 hours per week, today they also have automatic insurance should they become disabled (SSI), automatic medical coverage if they are injured on the job (everyone has workeman's comp insurance whether or not they have healthcare), and on and on.

I'm not trying to paint some picture of perfection, but if you look at the realities of life then and now, it's completely absurd to try to make it seem like one % being lower than another % means life in 2014 has somehow regressed. The trend is clearly to more access to healthcare, better and safer work environments, far less hours spent working despite an improving standard of living, higher quality food, better access to education, less violence and crime, less hunger. In fact, the condition of humans in the world today is better than the in 1911 using literally any measure whatsoever.

So while if you could hop in a time machine, if you are in the Nth percentile today, and you went back to be in the the same Nth percentile in 1911, in 1911 you would own a larger share of the total wealth of the entire country. I don't think that would really make a bit of difference to you, since you would have to work twice as many hours, face a constant threat of complete ruin from common illnesses and likely injuries, and most almost certainly die at a far younger age.

So that's why these types of comparisons are meaningless.