Homeownership: The key to wealth inequality?

This chapter discusses the way the media approach the representation of wealth is misguided, as they mask important and relevant social distinctions. Media narratives often focus on specific groups in society, billionaires, the middle class, or the asset poor, measured by their net wealth. Experts typically assess changes in overall wealth inequality with measures such as the Gini coefficient or alternatively the ratio of the top 10 per cent to the bottom 90 per cent of wealth holders. Homeowners are in the middle of the wealth distribution; renters are found in the lower half of the wealth distribution and capitalists dominate the very top. Capitalists’ shares in total wealth are markedly larger than their shares in total income, while renters’ shares in income are larger than their shares in wealth.