Maria Josefina Perez, 81, uses a wheelchair as a walker as she begs from passing drivers in Monterrey August 15, 2014.
Maria Josefina Perez, 81, uses a wheelchair as a walker as she begs from passing drivers in Monterrey August 15, 2014. Perez and her husband Modesto Sotero, 82, have been living in a truck under a busy bridge for the last nine years after Sotero had a stroke and underwent surgery, and they ran out of funds. They live on a small pension Modesto receives from his former job as a newspaper journalist, and by begging from passing drivers. They have no children or other family members, and they own no property beside the truck and a few personal items, but they both say that they are happy living the way they do. Picture taken August 15. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

In a new study, America's wealth is found to be held by just .01 percent of the population. On the other hand, the middle class families hold wealth that puts them at levels equaling those after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, according to RTNews.

A study was conducted at the London School of Economics by authors Saez and Gabriel Zuchman, factoring parameters such as property tax and tax avoidance strategies. The study shows that previously, the amount of wealth concentrated in the hands of the top few was underestimated. Hence, even as income inequality is a well-known fact, the new research unearths another new and startling finding: wealth inequality, or "the value of everyone's holdings," is also high, according to mic.com.

Studying the bottom 90 percent of families to calculate the middle class wealth, they found that in the late 1920s, just before the Wall Street Crash, the bottom 90 percent had control over 16 percent of America's wealth. Their share shot up steadily from the beginning of the Great Depression till the end of the Second World War, even as there was a collapse in the money controlled by the richest households. It went on rising after World War Two as the middle class wealth grew to equal national wealth.

There was also rising rates of home ownership at that time. By the early 1980s, the wealth owned by the middle class was 36 percent, which was four times what the top 0.1 percent controlled. However, since the early 1980s, the net worth of the U.S. middle class has imploded, mainly as middle class incomes are slow, and also due to rising debt, including mortgages.

Meanwhile the fortunes of the very rich are rising steadily. Almost 16,000 families are part of the 0.01 percent of households in America, collectively worth an average $371 million. They control 11.2 percent of U.S. wealth, similar to what was noticed in 1916.

However, even if we go down slightly, we find that the top 0.1 percent, which has 160,000 families, holds just 22 percent of the U.S. wealth, which is slightly less than the 1929 peak, and equals the share of the bottom 90 percent. Today, the ratio of wealth to income in the U.S. is at 6.5. About 35 million in the world are millionaires, and 41 percent of them are U.S. residents, according to Daily Mail, Gobal wealth has risen by 8.3 percent in the past year. How this wealth was collected is also interesting. Some have become rich due to their own efforts, such as Mark Zuckerberg, but most of the people are rich due to inheritance.