The Wealth Gap Shrinks

The report provides a snapshot of American household debt, income and wealth across demographic groups.

Median real incomes grew 5% from 2016 to 2019, the Fed reports, but it buries the lead. Lo, "Families at the top of the income and wealth distributions experienced very little, if any, growth" in net worth between 2016 and 2019 "After experiencing large gains between 2013 and 2016," while "Families near the bottom of the income and wealth distributions generally continued to experience substantial gains." That's a long way of saying wealth inequality declined.

As a comparison, between 2010 and 2016 Americans under age 35 saw a 5.8% increase in median incomes and those without a high-school degree only 1.7%. Employment and wages after the 2008-2009 recession rebounded faster for professionals than for low-skilled and entry-level workers.

From 2001 to 2004, incomes for Americans without a high-school degree increased 11.2%. The Fed also reports growing wealth among lower-income Americans.

About 14.5% of Americans in the lowest income quintile owned corporate stocks in 2019, up from 11.5% in 2016 and 12.3% in 2010.

Surely it's important that before the pandemic less affluent Americans were sharing more in the country's growing wealth.

That's the economy Americans should want to return to, not the slow growth and widening wealth gap of the Obama years.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wealth-gap-shrinks-11601420393?mod=hp_opin_pos_2