Not sure I catch your drift. People with more income and more assets are richer than those with less under most definitions. Not much adjustment actually needs to be done to confirm their position on the inequality spectrum. If you are arguing that the spectrum/balance is now too tilted how should wealth and income measures be adjusted to make them more meaningful to the core purpose of the debate on inequality? If you are going to drift back into absolute poverty discussions again, please set up another post.
As to the $1m family home example, I must say that you are extremely inventive and well researched in all the ways to excuse (yourself for) underachievement. It would seem a reasonable perspective and I'm sure many would see merit in it. I do. Then I looked some more.
If you are a gazillionaire because you got off your butt and did something with your life that led to commercial success, compound interest on your assets would lead to your relative wealth expanding against the populace if the rate of growth of assets exceeds that of incomes more generally and matches the general return of asset holdings by others. Sure thing.
I am going to make an assumption that we are not talking about the kind of equality that talks about the richest man/woman since the dawn of time. If I am wrong...please walk the tightrope again whilst juggling fire. Instead, we are talking about movements around broader classifications.
Strangely, people look into this stuff with heavy effort as opposed to anecdote. One of these groups is the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Here is the key take-out from the Aug 2013 report on Household Wealth and Wealth Distribution which surveyed a sample of 14,600 households. I don't think they skewed it towards Republicans. However, I disclose that the footnotes are silent on this.
Just for kicks, here are the stats for the income/wealth relationship for Australia:
View attachment 59554
A relationship clearly exists with the lowest income decile heavily representing retirees who naturally have low incomes and are beyond the maximum wealth accumulation phase of their lives.
So, let's march on to the $1m house etc. Except let's look at stats rather than anecdote. I know it generates less emotive response, but you present this in an apparently serious way rather than deliberately fantastical. Here's the key table:
View attachment 59555
Some points to note:
+ Of the richest quintile, 92% of their total income comes from...working. Not sucking the life out of some trust fund like a hungry baby.
+ The lowest quintile has a high proportion of households classified as "owner without a mortgage" at 50%. This declines through the quintiles until, well golly gosh, the richest quintile has the lowest figure of 20%. What? Those poor rich people, who live in the family home (this group has the highest proportion of families with dependent children), and are mortgage slaves. In fact the mortgages are so distasteful that 20% choose to rent! Is that wildly below the average of 30%?
+ As you move further down the wealth figures, the household sizes shrink. Further, the number of people who work in those households shrinks as they move outside the workforce age group. Presumably they don't actually need a 5br $1m house and would be fine with a $500k 3br house that isn't quite so close to the CBD office. This somewhat narrows any mortgage burden issue that you want to rest on for a tide of woe. How strange that, as you move through your career and build a family your wealth generally increases and, when moving to retirement, your income drops and with it your wealth. Outrage!
+ As we move to the bottom quintile, 34% rent. Fifty percent own their homes outright and 12% have a residual mortgage. Government support of some kind is received by 76% of this cohort. For 76%, this makes up more than half of their income. This is a living supplement. It is not intended to be a means to afford a $1m family home in Sydney.
+ Do you think we should socialize property? Sure worked for Gadaffi. Perhaps increase the transfers some more so that full fledged government pensioners can afford to pay-down a mortgage that they may have been able to afford whilst working? Sure worked for Greece.
Next excuse please.