Fault Lines - The Top 1%

The richest one per cent of Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40 per cent of its wealth.

Inequality in the US is more extreme than it has been in almost a century - and the gap between the super-rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.

Meanwhile, in Washington, a bitter partisan debate over how to cut deficit spending and reduce the US' $14.3 trillion debt is underway. As low and middle class wages stagnate and unemployment remains above nine per cent, Republicans and Democrats are tussling over whether to slash funding for the medical and retirement programmes that are the backbone of the US' social safety net, and whether to raise taxes - or to cut them further.

The budget debate and the economy are the battleground on which the 2012 presidential election race will be fought. And the US has never seemed so divided - both politically and economically.

How did the gap grow so wide, and so quickly? And how are the convictions, campaign contributions and charitable donations of the top one per cent impacting the other 99 per cent of Americans? Fault Lines investigates the gap between the rich and the rest.

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• Category

  • Documentary
  • News

• Starring:

  • Sebastian Walker
  • Zeina Awad
  • Josh Rushing
  • Anjali Kamat

• Produced by:

  • Mat Skene
  • Jeremy Young
  • Andréa Schmidt
  • Elizabeth Gorman
  • Laila Alarian
  • Sweta Vohra
  • Anjali Kamat

[Blindastronomer]

"You need to work hard to make it, because anybody can get rich in America. "

>> Joins father's company.

[Filthy Pazuzu]

Absolutely. When politicians can easily just buy elections, having elections more often won't solve anything, it'll make it worse.

[Barackovich]

yep, sounds about right.

[Mathew Deleon]

wanna know how this works? check out Zeitgeist 2: Addendum on youtube.

[bmdshred77]

The problem is welfare losers like the ones in this video make 61000 a year to do nothing and the working class makes an average of 50000 a year.

[Jeffery Liggett]

The rich aren't spending their money fast enough to keep the economy going.

[canttellyoumate]

And you think Romney would have given a shit?

[Waz ramzi]

Yes, correct..They are usually lazy and unintelligent people who can't stand reality that they will lead live of mediocrity instead of trying to change their circumstances. Idiots really. I Come from a family of doctors and 20 years ago we were all political refugees from Ethiopia and we all couldnt read and had only 200 dollars in the bank account. People are just stupid and lazy so then they use a scapegoat such as corporations to vent out there frustrations of being failures.

[novus51]

Obama does not give a damn about us he is a puppet

[jldude84]

It's ok they'll let the bulk of Americans die while they sit on their thrones, not realizing we ARE their source of wealth. Without the other 90%, the elite will be bankrupt faster than the homeless on the streets they avoid being chauffered down.

[DeimosSaturn]

I think if you're fat, you shouldn't show up at any rally about being too poor. Yeah, I get that McDonalds and Pepsi is cheaper than water, but it's not THAT cheap.

[perkanator134]

The problem is not EVERYONE can do that. Right now the problem is not enough jobs money for the poorest people to live well. The solution is NOT to take MORE welfare programs from the poor and let the already well off rich pay even less taxes. Trying to help the poor by giving them less and giving more to the rich?! How on earth does that solve anything. It makes far more sense to ask sacrifices from those who can afford it.