Sources:
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) consumer price data
- U.S. Census Bureau median income data
- Forbes annual billionaire net worth estimates
Methodology:
- Everyday prices and median income are shown as percent increase since 1980.
- Billionaire net worth is shown as percent increase from the first year each individual reached a net worth of at least $1 billion.
- Figures are based on annual estimates and rounded for readability.
- I put all the data into Excel, created charts, and had Chatgpt help me create the visually appealing graphic.
I wanted to compare how the growth in everyday living costs and median income over the last 45 years compares to the growth in billionaire wealth over roughly the same period.
by OpalGinger
15 Comments
And we can’t peel off a few extra percent from the billionaires to keep life nicer for millions?
This is the most bizarre thing I will see all day. Did Elon Musk make his money in the egg trade? Did Warren Buffett make his billions selling slices of bread?
The numbers are wrong. For example the median income went up 400% not 40% since 1980
Guess where a good portion of that housing 540% profit goes.
Simone Biles, Michael Phelps got the most medals. Maybe Olympic medalists are the problem.
Just a few points.
Let the data speak for itself. No need to add political commentary.
Second – “Median Income” is not “the cost of things people buy every day”
Are you sure you have the median income correct? I have a feeling it is using inflation adjusted dollars, while the commodity prices you’ve provided aren’t.
Different country but minimum wage in Ontario 1980 was $3.00, it is now $17.95. (6x).
The average (can’t readily find median data) individual income was $14259 in 1981. Using the average instead of median likely skews this higher even.. median is now $45200 (average $68700). So 3-4x. Significantly more than the 40% narrative in the post.
This looks like AI generated dogshit that makes no sense.
I’m not sure what the best way to make this point is, but cherry picking the wealth of 6 individuals is not it.
The wealth graph is pretty disconnected from the 45 year time frame (and for comparing each person) if you’re starting each count from when they each reached $1 billion
Obviously their wealths have gone up way way more than those percentages since 1980… even Buffett didn’t hit $1 billion until 1986.
Bezos became a billionaire in 1999 so there you’re “comparing” 1980-Present to 1999-Present. Okay.
Then the wealth calculation itself appears to be nonsense since you’re suggesting the big dawgs are all in the $100billion range for current net worth (or 250ish for Elon, which is also way low)
Fuck billionaires, though, obv
The richest people are by defintion the people who have grown their wealth the most. So it doesnt make sense to compare that to other things. It is a false equivelance.
If you looked at the richest people in 1980 and see how much their wealth increased it would show a very different picture.
And since the growth in billionaire wealth is not calculated as percentage gain since 1980 that headline should not be over the entire chart but rather inside the blue box.
I dont know what data you use for median income, but this source shows a 67% real growth since from 1980 to 2024: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N)
That means after doing inflation adjustment.
This data from BLS shows the same,[https://www.bls.gov/charts/usual-weekly-earnings/usual-weekly-earnings-over-time-total-men-women.htm#](https://www.bls.gov/charts/usual-weekly-earnings/usual-weekly-earnings-over-time-total-men-women.htm#) so just referencing BLS doesnt really make your case.
Can you show which tables you used?
That “Billionaire net worth” statistic might be the most obviously biased and flawed representation of data that I have ever seen.
What a shit comparison lmao
I’ll say it again – people believing that these companies are worth more money than they were before, hence increasing the unrealized net worth of the CEOs does not take wealth away from anyone else
Comparing _nominal_ price increase with _real_ median income increase (which already accounts for price change) is useless at best and deliberately misleading at worst.