Your first sentence is (IMHO) the correct answer to this question. For the same reason everyone can't be better than average.

The way we get the articles about the top few families having more net worth than the bottom x% is because the bottom y% has negative net worth (e.g. recent graduates with student loans and not much in the way of assets, people in credit card debt, etc.) and it takes the other x - y% to get the total back up to 0. Back around '08-'09, this was a much higher than normal percentage of the population because of a lot of underwater mortgages. The top few families own about a small fraction of 1% of U.S. wealth.

The first sentence is completely correct, though... 'rich' is literally defined in terms of having a far-above-average income. By definition, it's impossible for everyone to be 'rich.' For what it's worth, the median American (and even most 'poor' Americans) are considered 'rich' by the standards of most of the world's population. Just not by our own standards because that's mathematically impossible.

The original claim that spread quite a bit was about the Walton family. The claim was that they had more net worth than the bottom 30% of Americans combined. The claim was technically true at the time. Of course, the claim was also true of the author of the claim, as well as of you and me because we have non-negative net worth. The actual percentage of U.S. net worth owned by the Waltons at the time was 0.13%.

@reirab - you make some true observations. Approx 40% have zero wealth, so it's true to say that I have more than the bottom 40%. The top 1% own about 35% of the US wealth, and within this group there's a strong skew to the top 10%. (Last, the numbers are a moving target, most articles seem to be ay least a few years old)

@JoeTaxpayer The top 1% isn't a "few families," though. It's about 3,250,000 people. Of course, the distribution is definitely uneven - no arguments there - just not quite as uneven as some people abuse statistics to suggest.

We are not disagreeing. Look up GINI to see another way to look at this.

This should be the answer, because it's objectively true. By mathematical definition, everyone can't be far above average.

I'm afraid you are taking the question too literally. You can see it if you put it in the context of the whole text that OP wrote. The question that should be something like: "Why isn't everyone becoming financially independent by investing?" (probably not the best wording, but you get the idea).

@Ctrl-C There's always the chance that the OP was unaware of the distinction. This gets right to the misunderstanding which is evident in the OP's thinking (and mine as well, if I'm honest). Sometimes, we must understand the terms more clearly in order to ask a better question.

@reirab: Perhaps "rich" is not the word to use here. (Though technically, one could be rich without having any income at all: mynews4.com/news/local/… ) Probably the proper term here is "financially independent", or being able to live comfortably without needing to work.

@reirab Source needed for " 'rich' is literally defined in terms of having a far-above-average income." For example, Merriam Webster defined rich as: "having abundant possessions and especially material wealth"

Wealth is not a zero-sum game.

Derek, that's true, but not relevant to my thesis. When nearly half have close to nothing (can we at least agree that when talking about "Rich", $15K or so median wealth is close to nothing?) the fact that wealth keeps increasing just makes the rich richer. 10X the wealth? The median moves up to $150K, still not rich. It's distribution of income that becomes an even larger factor.

This is the result of the Power Law applied to wealth. It only takes a minor advantage to gain significant rewards, and those rewards are out-sized to the advantage. And thus the uneven distribution, a result of minor differences in advantage. But as another poster states, Choice makes a big difference (in advantage).

@NPSF3000 Fair enough. Far above average wealth works, too. At any rate, the key part is it requires being above average, which, by definition, everyone cannot be.

@reirab did you read the definition I posted? It says 'abundant' not 'above average'. You're inventing an definition.

@NPSF3000 Even if you take the Merriam Webster definition, the consequence of that definition will be "far above average funds" (I've substituted current value for income). What is considered "abundant possessions and material wealth" today requires significant amounts of money, but if, overnight, everyone became as wealthy as the top 0.1%, then the following day inflation would make everyone poor again. If the bread-maker is a multi-billionaire, why would he get out of bed to make bread unless it was for several million?

@LoganPickup you keep twisting the definition... rather than follow it to it's logical conclusion. 'Abundant' does not mean 'top 0.1%' it means 'plentiful'. I can have 'plentiful' food, shelter, entertainment, family, furniture, house, medical supplies... on a deserted island with no external society! Let alone with the efficiencies of scale that society brings. This idea that it's zero-sum only works if you follow an incorrect definition and beg the question.

@Logan Pickup: Perhaps the billionaire bread maker actually likes making bread?

@NPSF3000 No, you're being obtuse. How do you think a society is going to define what's considered 'abundant?' (Hint: it will be based on distribution within that society, with those well above average [or perhaps well above median] being considered 'rich.')

I'd bet we'd never have consensus on such a question.