The Fastest Wealth Growth of the 2020s Belongs to America's Bottom Half

The Fastest Wealth Growth of the 2020s Belongs to America's Bottom Half

Between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2026, the combined net worth of the bottom 50% of US households rose from $1.9 trillion to $4.3 trillion, a gain of 129% and the largest of any wealth group. The top 0.1% grew 106%. The next 9%, the tier just below the very top, grew only 57%.

The starting points are too different for that ranking to mean much. The bottom half added $2.4 trillion. The top 0.1% added $14.4 trillion. Consumer prices rose about 29% over the same stretch, so the bottom half's 129% is closer to 77% in real terms.

What matters is how the shares moved. Using the chart's own figures, the top 0.1% went from about 12.4% of total household net worth to 15.0%, and the bottom 50% from about 1.7% to 2.3%. The Federal Reserve's distributional accounts put those same two figures at 15.0% and 2.3% for the second quarter. Both ends gained and the middle paid for it: the next 9% fell from roughly 39.5% to 36.4%, the only group to shrink meaningfully.

That tier is the households above the 90th percentile but below the top 1%, holding mostly equities, retirement accounts and a primary home. Those assets did appreciate. They simply appreciated more slowly than what the very top owns.

So the story of the 2020s is not a simple widening gap, nor the bottom catching up. It is the top compounding faster than everyone else, with the professional class losing ground in relative terms.

Source: Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (Image: @awealthofcs)