Wealth gap

Extracted Attributes

• International Disparity

  US median and mean wealth per adult differ by over 600%

• Racial Wealth Ratio (2022)

  $15 for Black households for every $100 for white households

• Top 1% Total Assets (Q3 2025)

  $55 trillion

• Top 1% Wealth Share (Q1 2024)

  30.5% of total U.S. wealth

• Top 1% Wealth Share (Q3 2025)

  31.7% (highest share on record)

• Bottom 50% Wealth Share (Q1 2024)

  2.5% of total U.S. wealth

• Median Black Family Net Worth (2023 Q4)

  $44,100

• Median White Family Net Worth (2023 Q4)

  $282,310

Timeline

• Smallest recorded difference between Black and white family wealth ($123,910). (Source: Brookings)

  1983-01-01

• Federal Reserve begins tracking household wealth; wealth inequality begins substantial increase. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1989-01-01

• Housing bubble bursts, leading to a 40% loss in median net worth for families by 2013. (Source: Pew Research Center)

  2006-01-01

• Study reveals US citizens across the political spectrum dramatically underestimate wealth inequality. (Source: Wikipedia)

  2011-01-01

• Wealth of U.S. billionaires increases by 70% during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Source: Wikipedia)

  2020-12-31

• Top 1% of U.S. households hold 30.5% of national wealth in Q1. (Source: Wikipedia)

  2024-03-31

• Top 1% share of U.S. wealth reaches record 31.7% in Q3. (Source: CBS News)

  2025-09-30

Wealth inequality in the United States

The inequality of wealth (i.e., inequality in the distribution of assets) 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.

Web Search Results

• Wealth gaps across racial and ethnic groups - Pew Research Center

  To address these questions, we grouped U.S. households into three tiers of wealth. The middle tier consists of households whose wealth lies between one-quarter and four times the median wealth of U.S. households – between $41,700 and $667,500 in 2021. Households in the lower tier had wealth less than $41,700 in 2021, and households in the upper tier had wealth more than $667,500. Fewer than half of U.S. households (44%, or 59 million) were in the middle tier in 2021. This was so despite the wide range of the middle tier – those near the top had 16 times as much wealth as those near the bottom. At the same time, about a third of households (32%, or 43 million) were in the lower wealth tier, and about a quarter (23%, or 31 million) were in the upper tier. [...] “Poorer,” “more solvent,” “wealthier” and “richer” refer to a household’s wealth status relative to other households of the same race and ethnicity. Poorer households rank in the bottom 25% when compared with other households of the same race and ethnicity; more solvent households place from the 25th up to and including the 50th percentile; wealthier households from the 50th up to and including the 75th percentile; and the richer are in the top 25%. The bottom 1% and the top 1% are excluded prior to the ranking so extreme values do not affect estimates for poorer and richer households. [...] Lower, middle and upper wealth tiers refer to a household’s wealth status relative to all other households in the U.S. The middle wealth tier consists of households whose wealth lies between one-quarter to four times as much as the median wealth of U.S. households – between $41,700 and $667,500 in 2021. Households in the lower wealth tier had wealth less than $41,700, and households in the upper wealth tier had wealth more than $667,500. The wealth tier boundaries vary across years. (Dollar amounts are expressed in December 2021 prices.)

• Trends in U.S. income and wealth inequality - Pew Research Center

  The wealth gap between upper-income and lower- and middle-income families has grown wider this century. Upper-income families were the only income tier able to build on their wealth from 2001 to 2016, adding 33% at the median. On the other hand, middle-income families saw their median net worth shrink by 20% and lower-income families experienced a loss of 45%. As of 2016, upper-income families had 7.4 times as much wealth as middle-income families and 75 times as much wealth as lower-income families. These ratios are up from 3.4 and 28 in 1983, respectively. [...] As a result, the wealth gap between America’s richest and poorer families more than doubled from 1989 to 2016. In 1989, the richest 5% of families had 114 times as much wealth as families in the second quintile, $2.3 million compared with $20,300. By 2016, this ratio had increased to 248, a much sharper rise than the widening gap in income.13 ### Income inequality in the U.S has increased since 1980 and is greater than in peer countries Income inequality may be measured in a number of ways, but no matter the measure, economic inequality in the U.S. is seen to be on the rise. [...] But the run up in housing prices proved to be a bubble that burst in 2006. Home prices plunged starting in 2006, triggering the Great Recession in 2007 and dragging stock prices into a steep fall as well. Consequently, the median net worth of families fell to $87,800 by 2013, a loss of 40% from the peak in 2007. As of 2016, the latest year for which data are available, the typical American family had a net worth of $101,800, still less than what it held in 1998. ### The wealth divide among upper-income families and middle- and lower-income families is sharp and rising The wealth gap among upper-income families and middle- and lower-income families is sharper than the income gap and is growing more rapidly.

• Black wealth is increasing, but so is the racial wealth gap | Brookings

  Since 2010, the wealth disparity between Black and white families has persistently expanded. From the very first Survey of Consumer Finances in 1983, the smallest difference between Black and white family wealth was $123,910 in 1992, and has steadily climbed since, peaking in 2022. Figure 2 shows that from 1989 to 2022, the Black-white median wealth gap has averaged $172,000, and rarely dropped below 10% of this. However, between 2019 and 2022, the gap breeched 10% of the average—signaling an increase in disparity not seen since 2007, when the gap reached $214,970. The growing disparity means that in 2022, for every $100 in wealth held by white households, Black households held only $15. [...] Even though wealth increased across the board, the data discussed here shows that not all people are reaping the benefits. While housing equity increased for Black households, other components to wealth-building such as corporate and business equity did not, exacerbating the racial wealth gap. Centuries of discrimination in public policy, financial practices, and societal norms that limited Black wealth accumulation have not been overcome, and will require broad structural changes to rectify the long-lasting impact of inequality. ## Wealth increases during the pandemic did not narrow the persistent racial wealth gap > ...in 2022, for every $100 in wealth held by white households, Black households held only $15. [...] Looking at housing and stock wealth since 1989 (Figure 4), the increasing wealth gap becomes dramatically clear. Real estate wealth and stock equity show the power of intergenerational accumulation that a myriad of discriminatory policies has catalyzed, concentrating ownership in white communities. In the 1980s, a booming market made prior ownership of stocks and housing even more powerful, exacerbating the Black-white wealth gap.

• Wealth inequality in America just hit its widest gap in more than 3 ...

  Middle-income households, on the other hand, tend to have their wealth tied up in their homes, and house price growth has been slowing, Zandi added. Lower-income Americans are struggling with higher debt loads, he said. Uneven wage growth is also contributing to the divide. Higher-income Americans have seen their wages grow at a stronger clip than other income groups. Bank of America data shows that higher-income households' wage growth grew at 3% rate in December 2025, compared to 1.5% and 1.1% for middle- and low-income households. Edited by Aimee Picchi In: Income Inequality wealth gap #### Is Trump ushering in a new "Gilded Age"? [...] # Wealth inequality in America just hit its widest gap in more than 3 decades By Mary Cunningham Reporter, MoneyWatch Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. She previously worked at "60 Minutes," CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program. Read Full Bio Mary Cunningham / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Data from the Federal Reserve shows that the so-called K-shaped economy in America is alive and well, with low- and middle-income households falling further behind as the richest Americans pull away. [...] The top 1% of households owned 31.7% of all U.S. wealth in the third quarter of 2025, the highest share on record since the Federal Reserve began tracking household wealth in 1989. That share has increased even as wealth growth for the rest of the population has stalled or slowed, the data shows. Collectively, the wealthiest 1% held about $55 trillion in assets in the third quarter of 2025 — roughly equal to the wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans combined. "Household wealth is highly concentrated and becoming steadily more concentrated," Mark Zandi, chief economist at financial research firm Moody's Analytics, told CBS News.

• Wealth Inequality - Inequality.org

  The racial wealth divide, according to Survey of Consumer Finances data, has narrowed slightly since 1989, but remains extremely wide. The median Black family has a net worth (including cars and other durable goods) of $44,100, just 15.5 percent of the $282,310 median white wealth. The typical Latino family, with $62,120, owns just 21.8 percent of the wealth of the median white family. The Institute for Policy Studies report, Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide, offers proposals for bold, structural reforms to address this problem. [...] #### The Racial Wealth Divide Public policies that favor white Americans and the wealthy have perpetuated both an extreme concentration of wealth and an extreme racial wealth divide. White households, Federal Reserve data show, held 84.2 percent of all U.S. wealth as of the fourth quarter of 2023, while making up only 66 percent of households. By contrast, Black families accounted for 11.4 percent of households and owned 3.4 percent of total family wealth, while Hispanic families represented 9.6 percent of households and owned 2.3 percent of total family wealth. These wealth figures include the value of consumer durable goods, such as vehicles. [...] The rich don’t just have more wealth than everyone else. The bulk of their wealth comes from different — and more lucrative — asset sources, as the Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts data shows. America’s top 1 percent, for instance, holds more than half the national wealth invested in stocks and mutual funds. Most of the wealth of Americans in the bottom 90 percent comes from their homes — the asset category that took the biggest hit during the Great Recession. These Americans also hold just around three-quarters of America’s debt. #### The Racial Wealth Divide