Article Summary
Recent studies about wealth inequality and income inequality indicate that the American public's estimates of the distribution of wealth and income are quite different than actual data suggests. With respect to wealth, the top 20 percent of households hold more than 84% and the bottom 40 percent hold less than 1%, yet the public's estimates were 59% and 9%, respectively. In terms of income inequality, the public estimated that the CEO-to-worker pay-ratio was 30-to-1, whereas data suggests the actual ratio is 354-to-1, up from 20-to-1 in the 1960s.
President Obama has referred to economic inequality as "the defining challenge of our time," and although Americans seem to recognize that income and wealth gaps have widened, only 5 percent indicate that this inequality is a problem that needs to be addressed.
Source: Nicholas Fitz, "Economic Inequality: It's Far Worse Than You Think," Scientific American, March 31, 2015.
Refer to the Article Summary above. The article discusses wealth inequality, and for some people this means a more equitable distribution of wealth is needed in the economy. Would an equitable distribution of wealth necessarily be the most efficient distribution of wealth?
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Yes, equitable and efficient are two different words which have the same definition.
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Yes, in order for the distribution to be equitable, it must also be efficient.
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No, an economically efficient distribution of wealth would not necessarily be equitable.
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No, it is impossible to have an economically efficient distribution which is also an equitable distribution.
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