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Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. since 1989
- matheweis 4y agoIt’d be interesting to see this in adjusted real values (ideally asset classes of your choice) rather than proportional percentiles. It’s one thing if everyone is being lifted up because of efficiency improvements in energy, distribution, etc. It’s quite another of the top percentiles are engaged in rent seeking and pushing everyone down in the process..
- drekipus 4y agoNot an economist here, I don't understand what you mean. Do you mean things like stock ownership? Real estate? Personal possessions?
- matheweis 4y agoNot an economist either so I might be using incorrect terminology, but let me try to explain. Specifically I’m interested in whether everyone is getting wealthier or if some groups are effectively getting poorer. (Ex. If everyone is net wealthier then the narrative of wealth distribution is kind of misleading). As I understand it a common way to do a “fair” comparison would be to use inflation adjusted dollars. In that case we can simply compare the adjusted dollars and see. However, even adjusted dollars don’t always tell the full story. It doesn’t help if everyone is twice as wealthy if housing costs are four times as expensive. So, it would be interesting to compare for example, household wealth by percentiles against housing costs by percentiles.