From The First Forbes List to the Last…

Based on a comparison of the 1918 Forbes list to the 2014 list, we’ve officially returned to Gilded Age levels of wealth concentration.

I have a new post up at inequality.org, with almost the same title as this one, From the First Forbes Rich List to the Last. Click through if you have the time. Here’s the essence of it:

Consider this: In 1918, the wealth of the 30 wealthiest Americans totaled $3.68 billion, about 1.47 percent of the nation’s estimated aggregate wealth of $250 billion. The wealth of the 90 wealthiest Americans today totals $1.4 trillion, about 1.75 percent of our current aggregate wealth of $80 trillion.

[snip]

Put aside the outliers at the top of each list (Rockefeller then and Gates, Buffett, and Ellison today) and a clear pattern emerges. In 1918, a plutocrat at the top of the list owned about three times as much wealth as one in the middle of the top 30 and four times as much wealth as one barely making the top 30. Today, a plutocrat near the top of the Forbes list controls about four times as much wealth as one in the middle of the top 90 and almost seven times as much wealth as one near the bottom of the top 90.

In other words, the group today that includes the Koch brothers, the Waltons, and Sheldon Adelson towers over us far more mightily than did its 1918 counterpart, a gang that included Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan.

The bottom line: We don’t yet have a modern-day John D. Rockefeller. Otherwise, the new Gilded Age has officially arrived.