Income inequality is probably nothing compared to the wealth inequality. Do you know that the top 10% families share 70% of the nation's family net worth?

A net worth of $831,600 lands you at the 90th percentile. $93,100 gets you the middle point. At a little bit over $430,000, I'm probably at the 30th percentile. How do you stack up?

American families had net worth -- the value of houses, cars, 401(k) plans, stock portfolios and saving accounts minus mortgages and other debts -- of $50 trillion in 2004, according to the Fed. Its estimate is based on surveys of 4,522 families, with special efforts to include the rich.

How much better off than others are the wealthy?

Those in the 90th percentile -- not Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, but those with bigger balance sheets than 90% of American families -- had net worth of $831,600 in 2004.

That's nearly nine times the $93,100 held by the family at the statistical middle. And it's 62 times the net worth of families at the 25th percentile, the ones who don't have much, but have more than the poorest 25%, many of whom have more debts than assets.

Despite some disappointments in the stock market, the typical family in that top tenth enjoyed a 4.5% gain since 2001 and 71% since 1995, after adjusting for inflation. The family at the middle saw a more modest increase of 1.5% over 2001, much less than during the '90s boom, and an increase of 31% since 1995. If not for rising house prices the typical family at the middle would have been worse off than it was three years earlier.

How big a slice does the top 10% carve? Nearly 70% of that $50 trillion is in the hands of the richest 10% of American families, as the chart accompanying this column shows.

The next richest 40% -- those whose net worth was between $93,100 and $831,600 in 2004 -- held about 28% of the wealth.

That left about 2.5% of all household wealth in the U.S. to be shared by the 56 million families in the bottom half of the pyramid.