"A trenchant analysis of how the wealthiest 9.9 percent of Americans -- those just below the tip of the wealth pyramid -- have exacerbated the growing inequality in our country and distorted our social values"--

A compelling and complex story of one of the most convulsive and transformative eras in American history. In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the U.S. population doubled in the span of a single generation, national wealth expanded, and two classes rose simultaneously, separated by a gulf of experience and circumstance that was unprecedented in American life.

How do income, family background, education, attitudes, aspirations, and even appearance mark someone as a member of a particular social class? In travels across the U.S. in interviews with people from diverse socioeconomic groups, this film examines how social class in America has as much influence as race or ethnicity in determining what kind of opportunities a person has in life. Discusses how social class plays a role in the lives of all Americans,...