Many economists and researchers around the country are confirming that there is a growing wealth gap between a small amount of super-rich individuals constituting only 1% of the entire U.S. population and the other 99% of us. The statistic that is frequently quoted by the media and the Occupy Wall Street protestors is the richest 1% of Americans control a third of the country's total wealth.

1. What is your opinion on the statistic about the wealth gap in the United States?
2. Why is the wealth disparity so pronounced?
3. Based on what you are learning - or have learned - about simple and compound interests, how do simple and compound interests contribute to the wealth gap in the United States?