Here’s something you already knew without having read a headline explicitly spelling it out: rich people in the United States are almost single-handedly powering the economy right now because they’re the only ones with money to burn.The top 10 percent of earners are responsible for 49.7 percent of all spending in the United States. That sets a new record that no one—other than the most out of touch within that 10 percent—would celebrate. To put into perspective just how bad income inequality has become, 30 years ago, in 1995, the top 10 percent of earners made up 36 percent of all spending.The Richest 10% Are Spending All the Money—No One Else Has AnyDecades of tax cuts for the rich—while the rest of us have to scour the proverbial couch cushion for pennies—seems like it’s finally catching up and/or having the exact effect it was intended. That is, more for them, less for us.Chief economist from Moody’s Analytics, Mark Zandi, told the Wall Street Journal that “the finances of the well-to-do have never been better, their spending never stronger and the economy never more dependent on that group.”The horror of it is compounded by the fact that the bottom 80 percent of earners—meaning households that aren’t making $250,000+ a year—are spending 25 percent more than they did four years ago. Want another infuriating sentence from the Wall Street Journal article? Here’s one from David Tinsley, a senior economist for the Bank of America Institute: “They’re going to Paris and loading up their suitcases with luxury bags and shoes and clothes.”Surprise, there is a huge downside to concentrating so much of your nation’s economic prowess on its wealthiest citizens. Mark Zandi, this time speaking to NBC News, said that the rich can thank their appreciating assets for their wealth, things like their real estate investments or stock/crypto investments—the kinds of things most other people don’t have access to. But, should there be a downturn in any of those sectors, it will hit all of us. We don’t have multiple pillars holding us all up. We have, like, three pillars holding up only 10 percent of the country while everyone else is struggling.What This Means for the Future of the US Economy It used to be that making $100,000 meant you were maybe not rich but at least somewhat privileged. Comfortable-ish. But, according to a 2024 report from the Federal Reserve, making $100k today means you’re pinching pennies like everyone else. That’s how much the goalposts have shifted. If you want to be comfy the way you used to be with $100,000, you’d better start making at least $175,000. There are no more finish lines. You’re going to be on a treadmill for the rest of your life.The widening gap is evident in the way people are using credit cards. FICO, the people who are constantly delivering you emails filled with bad news about your credit score, says that there are more credit scores of 750 than ever, which sounds fine until you find out that the number of credit scores that are less than 600 is starting to rise again after years of decline. That’s because while middle and lower-class people have jobs, they still don’t have as much purchasing power as they used to, so they’ve turned to credit cards to keep pace—and with that comes more delinquencies, which are at their highest level in five years. This explains why the share of active credit card accounts that are just making the minimum payment every month is at a 12-year high.There is a profound economic rot in the United States and it seems abundantly clear that it stems from the nation’s kowtowing to the whiny whims of the wealthy while actively ignoring the pleas of help billowing out from the lower classes.The post Rich People Are Powering the Economy—No One Else Has Money appeared first on VICE.