Underestimation of what a wealth distribution looks like is just a common flaw with human brains, the same way people are terrible at estimating volumes of containers.
The other effect which confuses things is that we're talking about the distribution of wealth, not income. Many people survive very comfortably with a near-zero or even negative net wealth... a new law-school graduate on a $140K salary probably has a negative net wealth thanks to student loans, but nobody would call him poor.
The other effect which confuses things is that we're talking about the distribution of wealth, not income. Many people survive very comfortably with a near-zero or even negative net wealth... a new law-school graduate on a $140K salary probably has a negative net wealth thanks to student loans, but nobody would call him poor.