US wealth, income concentration resume upward climb in post-pandemic era
By Howard Schneider
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The richest Americans are emerging from the coronavirus pandemic with their share of wealth and income on the rise again despite some thought that the tight job market and hefty wage gains spawned by the crisis might narrow the gulf between rich and poor.
Recent data from the Federal Reserve shows the top 1% of households by income held roughly 26.5% of household net worth at the end of June, up about 1.5 percentage points since 2019, the year before the pandemic bounced the economy between recession, massive government stimulus and high inflation.
New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, similarly, show the share of income going to the top 5% grew from 2019 through 2022 — to 23.5% from 23% — extending a trend dating from the 1980s that has given the highest earners greater fodder to build even more wealth.
For the bottom 40% by income that means a smaller slice of the pie even as their net worth has risen at the swiftest pace in years. While the collective net worth of the bottom one-fifth was up 27% to $4.2 trillion at the end of the second quarter from $3.3 trillion in 2019, their share of the country's wealth shrank to 6.7% from 7% during that time.
After a tumultuous period in which labor market leverage seemed to swell among lower-income families and less educated workers, with double-digit wage increases offered by companies struggling to fill less-skilled positions amid a broad worker shortage, the latest data shed a different light on what that has meant.
«If you think they have any leverage, it is leverage to what end?» said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank focused on labor issues. «Share matters because
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