<P> Just prior to President Obama 's 2014 State of the Union Address , media reported that the top wealthiest 1 % possess 40 % of the nation 's wealth ; the bottom 80 % own 7 % ; similarly , but later , the media reported , the `` richest 1 percent in the United States now own more additional income than the bottom 90 percent '' . The gap between the top 10 % and the middle class is over 1,000 % ; that increases another 1,000 % for the top 1 % . The average employee `` needs to work more than a month to earn what the CEO earns in one hour . '' Although different from income inequality , the two are related . In Inequality for All -- a 2013 documentary with Robert Reich in which he argued that income inequality is the defining issue for the United States -- Reich states that 95 % of economic gains went to the top 1 % net worth ( HNWI ) since 2009 when the recovery allegedly started . More recently , in 2017 , an Oxfam study found that eight rich people , six of them Americans , own as much combined wealth as half the human race . </P>
what percent of the us population controls the wealth
1 %