Firedog Lake -According to a new study by the Federal Reserve, American households have regained less than half of the wealth lost during the recession. While the wealthiest have actually gained since the crash the 99% are still not nearly whole.
While the business press is obsessed over the stock market, its ups and downs are mostly irrelevant to the fate of nearly all Americans. Financial wealth is heavily concentrated with 1% of the population owning roughly 45% of all financial assets and the bottom 80% of Americans owning roughly 20%.From the peak of the boom to the bottom of the bust, households watched a total of $16 trillion in wealth disappear amid sinking stock prices and the rubble of the real estate market. Since then, Americans have only been able to recapture 45 percent of that amount on average, after adjusting for inflation and population growth, according to the report from the St. Louis Fed released Thursday.
In addition, the report showed most of the improvement was due to gains in the stock market, which primarily benefit wealthy families. That means the recovery for other households has been even weaker.
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