Key Inequality Measure The Highest Since The Great Depression

The Huffington Post  | By Mark Gongloff
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Posted: 10/14/2014 11:44 am EDT Updated: 4 hours ago

You know inequality is getting bad when it’s making a Swiss bank uncomfortable. The ratio of wealth to household income in the U.S., a measure of inequality, is the highest it has been since just before the Great Depression, Credit Suisse noted in a64-page reporton global wealth released on Monday. The bank also warned that this was not good news for the health of the economy: “This is a worrying signal given that abnormally high wealth income ratios have always signaled recession in the past,” the bank wrote. Meanwhile, the richest 1 percent in the world own 48 percent of all the world’s wealth, according to Credit Suisse — a worrying signal for the global economy. Here’s a chart from the Credit Suisse report, of wealth-to-income ratios going back to 1900:

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