PBS ‘Land of the Free, Home of the Poor’ video shows dramatic wealth inequalities in the U.S.

“[In the US] we’re high for a poor country, in terms of inequality, and we’re a rich country. We’re about the same level of inequality as China. And, of course, China, half the population are rural peasants who are not part of the modern world.

And if we were to compare US with African countries, dictators in different places, you know, taking a lot of the wealth from normal people, we would be among the top half of the African countries of inequality. So, the U.S. really has reached an extraordinary level of income inequality.”

-Economist Richard Freeman

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnQwTS-K6jI&feature=player_embedded]

Thanks for Boing Boing for posting that video and comment

On PBS NewsHour Thuesday night, correspondent Paul Solman went to the line outside the Letterman show in NYC and showed people three different pie charts representing the possible distribution of wealth in three different countries. Most people figured the most equal of those was the US. It wasn’t. The US was the most unequal: the top 20% own 84% of the wealth in America, and the bottom 40% have only 0.3%. Land of the increasingly screwed, more like it.