The Climb: Wealth Inequality in America, to scale

You made it.

This is the top 0.1%: . But you still have a long, long way to go. The average 0.01% household has … and beyond You made it to The average 0.1% The 136,095 households at the top. Richer than 99.9% of U.S.

households.

Keep going ↑ Print the Wealth Inequality Graph Free PDF.

Tape it up on your wall, your classroom, your city council chamber.

We dare you to print the whole thing. Get the printable graph Stacked in $100 bills: Median household: The climb, as text Scroll up WealthInequalityinAmerica Drawn to scale Each column above is 1% of American households, lined up from poorest to richest. Picture each one as a stack of $100 bills: the median household’s stack is about 9 inches tall. The average top-1% household’s is 145 feet, and it keeps getting taller and taller… Inspired by Politizane’s video Wealth Inequality in America. Bars 1–99: estimated net worth at each percentile, 2023 Survey of Consumer Finances, adjusted to 2026 dollars (×1.1); the poorest 8% are shown with their reported debt. Top 1%: average, Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts, Q1 2026.

“Think” and “Ideal”: Norton & Ariely (2011), spread across percentiles for illustration.

Sources & method · The Companion (PDF) This is the bottom.

The graph starts above you.