Fact check: Wealth inequality in the US is worse than it was in France just before the French Revolution.

1. Summary of the results

The claim that US wealth inequality exceeds pre-revolutionary France is demonstrably incorrect based on available historical data. Multiple sources confirm that late 18th-century France had significantly higher inequality metrics:

• In revolutionary France, the top 20% earned 60-66% of total income, while in the US ^[1], the top 20% earned 52% of total income ^{[2] [2] [2]}
• The Gini coefficient (where higher numbers indicate greater inequality) was 0.59 in revolutionary France compared to 0.39 in the US as of 2017 ^{[2] [2] [2]}

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints

While the original statement is incorrect in its direct comparison, several important contextual points emerge:

• Current US wealth inequality is still a significant concern, even if not as extreme as pre-revolutionary France ^{[3] [3]}
• The wealth gap in the US continues to widen, which warrants attention regardless of historical comparisons ^[3]
• Historical parallels between wealth inequality and social unrest exist, though direct comparisons may be oversimplified ^{[3] [3]}

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement

The original statement appears to suffer from several biases:

• It makes a dramatic historical comparison that oversimplifies complex economic metrics and ignores crucial contextual differences between two very different societies
• Such comparisons often serve specific political narratives:
• Those advocating for radical economic reform might benefit from drawing parallels to the French Revolution
• Those minimizing current inequality concerns might benefit from highlighting how much worse things were historically
• While US wealth inequality deserves serious discussion, using incorrect historical comparisons can undermine legitimate concerns about current economic disparities ^{[3] [3]}