> this is income inequality, generational wealth, and the racial wealth gap all rolled into one.
To put that disparity into specific financial terms.
According to the Federal Reserve, the average white US household crossed the $1 million net worth line sometime in the past two years with the climb by the stock market and property values. Emphasis that that is the average, the median is closer to $190k-$210k, which is comparable to some of the wealthiest median household wealth nations such as Belgium, Australia and Switzerland.
The median white household wealth figure is only surpassed by the median asian household figure (asian households still trail white households on the average figure; due to a difference in duration of time to accumulate larger generational wealth).
The average black US household has an average net worth of about $150k for 2018, and a median of about ~$20,000. The Fed's figure is generally that black US households have less than 15% the wealth of white and asian households.
The average hispanic US household has an average net worth of about $200k for 2018, and a median of about ~$22,000.
Of note, as you'd expect there's an enormous difference in all households when it comes to education and wealth attainment. The average white household net wealth figure hits about $2 million where the lead earner has a bachelor's degree or higher; without that education level, the average wealth figure for white households is about 20% that (roughly $400k). In black households, a stark example of the importance of education attainment is that the median wealth figure increases by seven fold in households where the prime earner/s have a bachelor's degree or higher. In hispanic households with a bachelor's degree or higher, the average household wealth figure is around $650k (a great figure for most any wealthy nation). That hispanic demographic saw about a 60% (!) increase in their net worth between 2013 and 2019. Every way you look at the education vs wealth figures it puts an emphasis on the huge gap in wealth between households with more education vs less.
Besides the giant budget deficit problem, I don't see any scenario where taxes (on capital gains, income and estates) on the top ~10% don't go up a lot over the next 10-15 years or so. The largest lever the government is perceived to have to go after wealth disparity is aggressive wealth redistribution through taxes.
You of course also see this gap in other nations like France and the UK (which have some of the highest median household wealth levels), where they have very poor minorities with high unemployment rates and little personal or household wealth.
Social cohesiveness obviously falters in situations where you have such wealth disparities over time. That's particularly true if you have the triple hit of little economic growth, aging demographics and ever rising social demands (an increasingly common scenario in developed nations today).