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Household Wealth Trends in the United States, 1962 to 2019: Median Wealth Rebounds... But Not Enough

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  • Edward N. Wolff

Abstract

Median household wealth shot up by 21.2 percent in real terms between 2016 and 2019, as asset prices continued to rebound. However, 2007 still remains the watershed year, and median wealth was down 20.4 percent relative to 2007, though mean wealth more than fully recovered. There was a modest remission in wealth inequality, with the share of the top one percent down by 1.4 percentage points, that of the top 20 percent down by 1.0 percentage points, the Gini coefficient down by 0.008, and the mean wealth of the top one percent also down by 1.9 percent. The homeownership rate finally rebounded a bit, by 1.2 percentage points, to 64.9 percent. The stock ownership rate advanced by 0.4 percentage points to 49.6 percent, though still down from its 2001 peak. Though the mean debt of the middle class rose by 10.7 percent in real terms, the debt-income and debt-net worth ratios remained largely unchanged. The black-white gap in mean net worth remained unchanged, as did the Hispanic-white wealth gap. The wealth of households under age 35 continued to deteriorate in both absolute and relative terms between 2016 and 2019.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward N. Wolff, 2021. "Household Wealth Trends in the United States, 1962 to 2019: Median Wealth Rebounds... But Not Enough," NBER Working Papers 28383, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28383
    Note: AG LS
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    Cited by:

    1. Gandelman, Néstor & Lluberas, Rodrigo, 2022. "Wealth in Latin America," Research Department working papers 1904, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
    2. Hanna Karolina Szymborska, 2022. "Rethinking inequality in the 21st century – inequality and household balance sheet composition in financialized economies," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 24-72, January.
    3. Yanqin Fan & Marc Henry & Brendan Pass & Jorge A. Rivero, 2022. "Lorenz map, inequality ordering and curves based on multidimensional rearrangements," Papers 2203.09000, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.
    4. Joseph L. Gastwirth & Qing Shi, 2022. "Comparing the Secular Increasing Trend and Effect of the Response to the 2008 Financial Recession on Wealth Inequality in the U.S. with Other Nations Using the Median-based Gini Index," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 20(1), pages 261-276, September.
    5. Aditya Aladangady & Etienne Gagnon & Benjamin K. Johannsen & William B. Peterman, 2021. "Macroeconomic Implications of Inequality and Income Risk," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-073, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Joyce, Joseph, 2022. "The Impact of FDI Income on Income Inequality in Home Countries," MPRA Paper 114564, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

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