Forbes 400 Have Average Worth Of $4.2B

By Cornelius Nunev


According to Forbes latest list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, the wealth of the super-rich has grown in the last year. In the meantime, as the prosperous get richer, the middle class continues to shrink, widening yet more the gap between the rich and the poor.

Richer wealthy

The magazines released its yearly report on September 19. It discovered that the net worth of the nation's 400 wealthiest citizens grew by $1.7 trillion during the last year. That is a rise of 13 percent. Combined, the net worth of the elite 400 is the equivalent of 12.5 percent of the nation's economy, according to NBC News.

The average net worth per person in the 400 is higher than it has ever been at $4.2 billion.

There was an increase in income for 261 of the 400, mostly as a result of rebounding real estate industry and stock growth.

Top five the same

The list contained familiar and expected names. The rankings of the top five remained unchanged from 2011, although their net worth had risen: Gates, Buffett, Larry Ellison, Charles and Koch (tied for fourth) and Christie Walton.

In the last year, Buffett saw his worth rise by $7 billion, which is the same growth as Gates at the top of the list. Gates' fortune is not at $66 billion, and he has been on top of the list for 19 years. A larger boost was seen with Larry Ellison who saw an $8 billion boost in his net worth.

Not every person succeeds

A notable exception to the trend of increasing net worth was social network mogul Mark Zuckerberg, who lost almost half of his net worth after his cash cow Facebook went public. This year, he is scraping by on $9.4 billion.

Gap bigger than before

In 1961, the top one percent of earners in the country made 125 times more than the average middle-income household. In 2010, that number jumped to 288 percent compared to the typical middle-income earner. In the last century, the gap between the prosperous and the poor has more than doubled, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

The worth of the rich is increasing despite the fact that most Americans are seeing decreases in wealth recently.

While the trend has been active for decades, the Economic Policy Institute report noted that the gap has widened at a more rapid pace since the Great Recession.




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