Walton family wealth put in perspective

BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Six U.S. citizens, all of them tied to retail giant Walmart, are wealthier than the bottom 30 percent of U.S. families, an economist said.

Labor economist Sylvia Allegreto at the University of California, Berkeley, said six relatives of Walmart founders Sam and James Walton were worth $69.7 billion in 2007 and are now worth about $93 billion.

Allegreto said that meant that in 2007 the six were already wealthier than the bottom 30 percent of U.S. families, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

Allegreto's research showed that those in the top 1 percent of the country's richest are 225 times wealthier than the average U.S. family, a sharp jump from 1962, when the disparity was 125 times.

To put this in perspective, in a recent Gallup poll 10 percent of respondents indicated they considered an annual income of $100,000 would qualify the family as being "rich."