{"id":10329,"date":"2020-07-13T09:31:49","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T14:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/?p=10329"},"modified":"2020-08-10T10:58:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T15:58:03","slug":"the-economic-recovery-2010-19-what-changed-and-what-didnt-part-2-wealth-distribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/2020\/07\/13\/the-economic-recovery-2010-19-what-changed-and-what-didnt-part-2-wealth-distribution\/","title":{"rendered":"The Economic Recovery 2010-19: What Changed and What Didn\u2019t \u2013 Part 2: Wealth Distribution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wealth\nDistribution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relative to before the\nfinancial crisis of 2007-2009, wealth inequality increased during the economic\nrecovery. The Federal Reserve tracks wealth distribution in the United States\nthrough their Distributional Financial Accounts (DFA) database. The Distributional\nFinancial Accounts provide quarterly estimates of the distribution of U.S.\nhousehold wealth, beginning with the third quarter of 1989. The table below is\na summary of that data and shows how U.S. household wealth was distributed in\nthe fourth quarter of five-year periods beginning with 1990. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data for four percentile groups is presented: the top 1% (the 99th percentile), the next 9% (the 90th\u201399th percentile), the next 40% (50th\u201389th percentile) and the bottom 50%. Percentile groups split up the total net worth of households in the United States. The top 1% represents those households having more net worth (wealth) than 99% of the households in the United States. Net worth is defined as total assets minus total liabilities (debt).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the long\nperiod of economic growth, getting more of the financial pie has been a\nstruggle for those in the bottom 50% of wealth distribution in the United\nStates. The bottom 50% owned 4.0% of total net worth in the United States in 1995.\nThe percentage of net worth owned by the bottom 50% steadily declined after the\nturn of the century and dropped to 2.3% in 2005. However, the financial crisis\nof 2007-2009 hit the bottom 50% particularly hard. Following the crisis, the\nbottom 50% owned only 0.7% of total net worth in the United States in 2010. The\nrecord economic expansion of the last decade improved that number, but not\nmuch. In 2019 the bottom 50% comprised only 1.5% of total net worth in the\nUnited States, much less than the 3.9% in 1990, 4.0% in 1995, 3.4% in 2000, and\neven the 2.3% in 2005. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest winner in\nwealth distribution was the top 1%. In 1990, the top 1% owned 23.3% of total\nnet worth in the United States. After a slight drop between 1995 and 2000, the\npercentage of net worth owned by the top 1% increased every five-year period.\nThe top 1% owned 28.3% of total net worth in 2005 and saw an increase to 29.5% in\n2010 following the financial crisis. In 2019, a record high of 32.9% of net\nworth was owned by the top 1%. The top 10% owned 70.2% of total new worth in\n2019 compared to 68.5% in 2010 and 60.2% in 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wealth Distribution by Percentile Group<\/strong>
Source: Federal Reserve \u2013 Distributional Financial Accounts<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n Top\n 1%<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n Next\n 9%<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n Next\n 40%<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n Bottom\n 50%<\/strong>\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n 1990\n <\/td>\n 23.3\n <\/td>\n 36.9\n <\/td>\n 35.9\n <\/td>\n 3.9\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n 1995\n <\/td>\n 28.3\n <\/td>\n 33.4\n <\/td>\n 34.2\n <\/td>\n 4.0\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n 2000\n <\/td>\n 27.7\n <\/td>\n 34.8\n <\/td>\n 34.1\n <\/td>\n 3.4\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n 2005\n <\/td>\n 28.3\n <\/td>\n 36.4\n <\/td>\n 33.0\n <\/td>\n 2.3\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n 2010\n <\/td>\n 29.5\n <\/td>\n 39.0\n <\/td>\n 30.8\n <\/td>\n 0.7\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n 2015\n <\/td>\n 31.6\n <\/td>\n 38.0\n <\/td>\n 29.4\n <\/td>\n 1.1\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n 2019\n <\/td>\n 32.9\n <\/td>\n 37.3\n <\/td>\n 28.3\n <\/td>\n 1.5\n <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

For further information:<\/strong>
1. Federal Reserve \u2013 Distributional Financial Account Data
Distribution of Household Wealth<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Economic<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

CBEI Series: The Economic Recovery 2010-19: What Changed and What Didn\u2019t<\/strong>
Part 1: Overview<\/a>
Part 2: Wealth Distribution<\/a>
Part 3: Manufacturing Employment<\/a>
Part 4: Trade with China \u2026 and the Rise of Vietnam<\/a>
Part 5: Funding the U.S. Government \u2013 Corporate vs. Individual Taxes<\/a>
Part 6: Corporate Debt and Collateralized Loan Obligations<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kevin<\/figure>
\n

Kevin Bahr is a professor emeritus of finance and chief analyst of the Center for Business and Economic Insight<\/a> in the Sentry School of Business and Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wealth Distribution Relative to before the financial crisis of 2007-2009, wealth inequality increased during the economic recovery. The Federal Reserve tracks wealth distribution in the United States through their Distributional Financial Accounts (DFA) database. The Distributional Financial Accounts provide quarterly estimates of the distribution of U.S. household wealth, beginning with the third quarter of 1989. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":10292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,527,12],"tags":[124,532,305,343,344,550],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10329"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10406,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10329\/revisions\/10406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}