Genes, Brains, and Human Potential The Science and Ideology of Intelligence

314 PROMOTING POTENTIAL

merit. Wealth is strongly refl ective of historical inequalities and repro-
duces them from generation to generation, giving “something for noth-
ing” to the benefi ciaries. Accordingly, wealth is much more skewed than
income. As mentioned above, the wealth gap between social classes has
been increasing markedly over the past few de cades.
Th e fi gures are stark enough. A report of the OECD in May 2015 (In
It Together: Why Less In e qual ity Benefi ts All) says the gap between the
rich and the poor keeps widening. In its thirty- four member states,
the richest 10  percent of the population earns 9.6 times the income of
the poorest 10  percent. As “stored up” income, wealth is then used
(usually by employing others) to make more wealth. So Mark Pearson,
head of the Health Division, told BBC News “It’s not just income that
we’re seeing being very concentrated— you look at wealth and you fi nd
that the bottom 40% of the population in rich countries have only 3%
of house hold wealth whereas the top 10% have over half of house hold
wealth.”^36
Th e skew is highest in the United States. In government statistics of
2010, Edward N. Wolff and Maury Gittleman found that the wealthiest
1  percent of families had inherited an average of $2.7 million from their
parents.^37 Th is was 447 times more money than the least wealthy group
of people— those with wealth less than $25,000— had inherited.
Or to put it another way: Th e richest 20  percent of Americans have
about 85  percent of all the wealth. And the bottom 20  percent have about
0.1  percent.^38 Th e situation is much the same in Britain. Th e top 5  percent
control about 45  percent of national wealth. Excluding housing, the fi gure
rises to nearly 60  percent of wealth in the United Kingdom. A December
2015 report from the Pew Research Center notes that the average income
of the upper tier of society is seven times that of the middle tier. In 1983,
it was merely double.
Obviously, inherited wealth considerably infl ates the income streams
of those who benefi t, and it creates big individual diff erences in families
and their children. Th e benefi ts are both material and socio- psychological.
Wealthy families have the opportunity to provide every environmental
benefi t for their children when they are young. It will be used to create
enriched physical environments from birth and throughout childhood:
good living conditions, stable and predictable circumstances, secure

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