Wealth inequality in the United States
The inequality of wealth has substantially increased in the United States since the late 1980s. Wealth commonly includes the values of any homes, automobiles, personal valuables, businesses, savings, and investments, as well as any associated debts.
Although different from income inequality, the two are related. Wealth is usually not used for daily expenditures or factored into household budgets, but combined with income, it represents a family's total opportunity to secure stature and a meaningful standard of living, or to pass their class status down to their children. Moreover, wealth provides for both short- and long-term financial security, bestows social prestige, contributes to political power, and can be leveraged to obtain more wealth. Hence, wealth provides mobility and agency—the ability to act. The accumulation of wealth enables a variety of freedoms, and removes limits on life that one might otherwise face.
Federal Reserve data indicates that as of Q1 2024, the top 1% of households in the United States held 30.5% of the country's wealth, while the bottom 50% held 2.5%. From 1989 to 2019, wealth became increasingly concentrated in the top 1% and top 10% due in large part to corporate stock ownership concentration in those segments of the population; the bottom 50% own little if any corporate stock. From an international perspective, the difference in the US median and mean wealth per adult is over 600%. A 2011 study found that US citizens across the political spectrum dramatically underestimate the current level of wealth inequality in the US, and would prefer a far more egalitarian distribution of wealth.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the wealth held by billionaires in the U.S. increased by 70%, with 2020 marking the steepest increase in billionaires' share of wealth on record.
Statistics
In 2007, the top 20% of the wealthiest Americans possessed 80% of all financial assets. In 2007, the richest 1% of the American population owned 35% of the country's total wealth, and the next 19% owned 51%. The top 20% of Americans owned 86% of the country's wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 14%. In 2011, financial inequality was greater than inequality in total wealth, with the top 1% of the population owning 43%, the next 19% of Americans owning 50%, and the bottom 80% owning 7%. However, after the Great Recession, which began in 2007, the share of total wealth owned by the top 1% of the population grew from 35% to 37%, and that owned by the top 20% of Americans grew from 86% to 88%. The Great Recession also caused a drop of 36% in median household wealth, but a drop of only 11% for the top 1%, further widening the gap between the top 1% and the bottom 99%.According to PolitiFact and other sources, in 2011, the 400 wealthiest Americans had more wealth than half of all Americans combined. Inherited wealth may help explain why many Americans who have become rich may have had a substantial head start. In September 2012, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, over 60 percent of the Forbes richest 400 Americans grew up in substantial privilege.
In 2013, wealth inequality in the U.S. was greater than in most developed countries, other than Switzerland and Denmark. In the United States, the use of offshore holdings is exceptionally small compared to Europe, where much of the wealth of the top percentiles is kept in offshore holdings. According to a 2014 Credit Suisse study, the ratio of wealth to household income is the highest it has been since the Great Depression.
According to a paper published by the Federal Reserve in 1997, "For most households, pensions and Social Security are the most important sources of income during retirement, and the promised benefit stream constitutes a sizable fraction of household wealth" and "including pensions and Social Security in net worth makes the distribution more even."
In Inequality for All—a 2013 documentary, narrated by Robert Reich, in which he argues that income inequality is the defining issue of the United States—Reich states that 95% of economic gains following the economic recovery which began in 2009 went to the top 1% of Americans .
A September 2017 study by the Federal Reserve reported that the top 1% owned 38.5% of the country's wealth in 2016.
According to a June 2017 report by the Boston Consulting Group, around 70% of the nation's wealth will be in the hands of millionaires and billionaires by 2021.
A 2019 study by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found that the average effective tax rate paid by the richest 400 families in the US was 23 percent, more than a percentage point lower than the 24.2 percent paid by the bottom half of American households. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center found that the bottom 20 percent of earners pay an average 2.9 percent effective income tax rate federally, while the richest 1 percent paid an effective 29.6 percent tax rate and the top 0.01 percent paid an effective 30.6 percent tax rate. In 2019, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that when state and federal taxes are taken into account, however, the poorest 20 percent pay an effective 20.2 percent rate while the top 1 percent pay an effective 33.7 percent rate.
Using Federal Reserve data, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth reported in August 2019 that: "Looking at the cumulative growth of wealth disaggregated by group, we see that the bottom 50 percent of wealth owners experienced no net wealth growth since 1989. At the other end of the spectrum, the top 1 percent have seen their wealth grow by almost 300 percent since 1989. Although cumulative wealth growth was relatively similar among all wealth groups through the 1990s, the top 1 percent and bottom 50 percent diverged around 2000."
According to an analysis of Survey of Consumer Finances data from 2019 by the People's Policy Project, 79% of the country's wealth is owned by millionaires and billionaires.
Also in 2019, PolitiFact reported that three people had more wealth than the bottom half of all Americans.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the wealth held by billionaires in the U.S. increased by 70%. According to the 2022 World Inequality Report, "2020 marked the steepest increase in global billionaires' share of wealth on record."
As of late 2022, according to Snopes, 735 billionaires collectively possessed more wealth than the bottom half of U.S. households. The top 1% held a total of $43.45 trillion.
Late 18th century
In the late 18th century, "incomes were more equally distributed in colonial America than in any other place that can be measured," according to Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson. The richest 1 percent of households held only 8.5% of total income in the late 18th century. The Gini coefficient, which measures inequality on a scale from 0 to 1 was 0.367 in New England and the Middle Atlantic, as compared to 0.57 in Europe. Some reasons for this include the ease that the average American had in buying frontier land, which was abundant at the time, and an overall scarcity of labor in non-slaveholding areas, which forced landowners to pay higher wages. There were also relatively few poor people in America at the time, since only those with at least some money could afford to come to America.19th century
Inequality grew in the 19th century; between 1774 and 1860, the Gini coefficient grew from 0.441 to 0.529. In 1860, the top 1 percent collected almost one-third of property incomes, as compared to 13.7% in 1774. There was a great deal of competition for land in the cities and non-frontier areas during this time period, with those who had already acquired land becoming richer than everyone else. The newly burgeoning financial sector also greatly rewarded the already-wealthy, as they were the only ones financially sound enough to invest.Early 20th century
, using income tax records and his research-based estimates, showed a reduction of about 10% in the movement of national income toward the top 10% of wealth-owners, a reduction from about 45–50% in 1913 to about 30–35% in 1948. This period spans both The Great Depression and World War II, events with significant economic consequences. This is called the Great Compression. Franklin D. Roosevelt's establishment of social programs under the New Deal and efforts towards wealth redistribution also reduced wealth inequality.1989—current
Role of Social Security
How wealth is measured affects inequality trends. Some measures count only marketable assets, while others also add the present value of already-accrued Social Security benefits. In the United States, employees pay 6.2% of wages in Social Security payroll tax, matched by employers for a total of 12.4%; of this, 5.3% + 5.3% funds Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and 0.9% + 0.9% funds Disability Insurance. These contributions create non-tradeable claims to future benefits. A 2025 study in the Journal of Finance finds that when accrued Social Security benefits are included in household wealth, the top 1% share rises only from about 22% to just under 24%, and the top 10% increases by roughly 1–2 percentage points; by contrast, on marketable-wealth measures that exclude Social Security, top shares rose by about 6–10 percentage points over the same period. After 2019, marketable-wealth data from the Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts indicate further concentration: the top 1% held about 31.0% of total household net worth in 2025:Q2. Comparable estimates that include accrued Social Security wealth for the 2020s have not yet been published. Note: Social Security benefits are non-tradeable and cannot be sold or borrowed against; including them flattens measured wealth trends but does not reflect control over purchasing power, liquid assets or political power.Effect of stock market gains
The Federal Reserve publishes information on the distribution of household assets, debt, and equity by quarter going back to 1989. The tables below summarize the net worth data, in real terms, for 1989 to 2022, and 2016 to 2022. Journalist Matthew Yglesias explained in June 2019 how the ownership of stock has driven wealth inequality, as the bottom 50% has minimal stock ownership: "...he bottom half of the income distribution had a huge share of its wealth tied up in real estate while owning essentially no shares of corporate stock. The top 1 percent, by contrast, wasn't just rich — it was specifically rich in terms of owning companies, both stock in publicly traded ones and shares of closely held ones...So the value of those specific assets — assets that people in the bottom half of the distribution never had a chance to own in the first place — soared."The National Public Radio, also known as NPR, reported in 2017 that the bottom 50% of U.S. households have little stock market exposure, writing: "That means the stock market rally can only directly benefit around half of all Americans — and substantially fewer than it would have a decade ago when nearly two-thirds of families owned stock."
Some authors argue that these increases in wealth inequality are indicative of a Second Gilded Age in America.
| Household Net Worth | Top 1% | 90th to 99th | 50th to 90th | Bottom 50% | Total |
| Q3 1989 | 11.51 | 18.26 | 17.72 | 1.86 | 49.35 |
| Q1 2022 | 47.07 | 56.85 | 42.79 | 3.92 | 150.63 |
| Increase | 35.56 | 38.59 | 25.07 | 2.06 | 101.28 |
| % Increase | 309% | 211% | 141% | 111% | 205% |
| Share of Increase | 35.1% | 38.1% | 24.8% | 2.0% | 100% |
| - | - | - | - | - | |
| Share of Net Worth Q3 1989 | 23.3% | 37.0% | 35.9% | 3.8% | 100% |
| Share of Net Worth Q1 2022 | 31.3% | 37.7% | 28.4% | 2.6% | 100% |
| Change in Share | +8.0% | +0.7% | -7.5% | -1.2% | 0.0% |
The table below shows changes from Q4 2016 to Q1 2022.
| Household Net Worth | Top 1% | 90th to 99th | 50th to 90th | Bottom 50% | Total |
| Q4 2016 | 33.75 | 42.45 | 32.60 | 1.56 | 110.36 |
| Q1 2022 | 47.07 | 56.85 | 42.79 | 3.92 | 150.63 |
| Increase | 13.32 | 14.40 | 10.19 | 2.36 | 40.27 |
| % Increase | 39.5% | 33.9% | 31.3% | 151.3% | 36.5% |
| Share of Increase | 33.1% | 35.7% | 25.3% | 5.9% | 100% |
| - | - | - | - | - | |
| Share of Net Worth Q4 2016 | 30.6% | 38.5% | 29.5% | 1.4% | 100% |
| Share of Net Worth Q1 2022 | 31.3% | 37.7% | 28.4% | 2.6% | 100% |
| Change in Share | +0.7% | -0.8% | -1.1% | +1.2% | 0.0% |