The 16,000 families making up the richest 0.01%, with an average net worth of $371m, now control 11.2% of total wealth-back to the 1916 share, which is the highest on record. Those down the distribution have not done quite so well: the top 0.1% (consisting of 160,000 families worth $73m on average) hold 22% of America's wealth, just shy of the 1929 peak-and exactly the same share as the bottom 90% of the population. This article discusses, on a relatively small scale, income inequality and disproportionate income growth, as the "top 1% of families grew 3.4% a year...the bottom 90% grew .7%." While the top .1%'s share of labor income seems to have peaked, this article raises some questions about social (and economic) mobility.

"During times like the 1950s and 1960s, a rising level of educational attainment kept up with this rising demand for skill. But since the late 1970s and early 1980s, the rise in U.S. education levels has not kept up with the rising demand for skilled workers, and the slowdown in educational attainment has been particularly severe for males. The result has been a sharp rise in the inequality of wages." This 2010 report from MIT's Department of Economics describes in detail the causes of polarization of job opportunities; it states that the supply and demand for skilled workers has changed over time, resulting in a workforce gap concentrated between " relatively high-skill, high-wage jobs and low-skill, low wage jobs." This report was linked from an NPR article (http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/02/349863761/40-years-of-income-inequality-in-america-in-graphs) which shows the correlation between education and percentile household income.