INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
US President Donald Trump rolled out an eye-catching statistic in his State of the Union address Tuesday: the wealth held by the poorest
trillion, but the vast majority went to groups that have tended to accumulate wealth in the past.
Even with a 54 per cent increase in their
household wealth under Trump, the poorest half of American households, around 64 million families, still have just 1.6 per cent of household
in the United States, even large moves in their fortunes do little to dent the overall distribution
In dollar terms as of the end of September 2019, that latest data available from the Fed, the combined net worth of the poorest half of
a quarterly basis, compound growth in household wealth since 1989 has averaged 1.39 per cent
Under Trump it is slightly less, at 1.34 per cent .
The bottom half of households saw their net worth rise by 54 per cent under Trump, from
$1.08 trillion to $1.67 trillion
around $34.5 trillion.
Even after those gains, that works out to average net worth of around $26,000 for the bottom half of households
versus around $27 million for the ones at the top.
Much of that increase among the bottom half was due to increases in real estate, not
stocks, after a resurgence in home ownership rates that began in 2016.
Wages for lower-skilled jobs have of late been rising faster than
those for higher-skilled occupations
January non-farm payrolls data show a bigger-than-expected jump in overall employment, bolstered by an increase in construction jobs.
But it
takes time for income to be saved and translate into wealth
Since Trump took office, households headed by a college graduate captured 75 per cent of the net worth gains, or around $11.88
trillion.
They represent about a third of all households, according to the Fed survey on which the data series is based.
Overall, households
worth during his time in office
Those households represent about a fourth of the total.
A BABY BOOMER BOOMGenerationally, households with a head born from 1946 to 1964 did
not get fooled again, as the 1971 rock anthem pledged
In 2016 about 36 per cent of household heads (in the case of mixed-sex couples the Fed considers the man to be the head, in same-sex couples
it is the oldest of the two) were headed by a member of the baby boom.
Wealth accumulates with time, and older people would tend to have a
larger base to start with
But for millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, the last three years of booming markets have meant an extra half trillion dollars
only, spread across about 20.6 per cent of households
the data told a familiar story of inequality
About 84 per cent of recent wealth gains accrued to the 64 per cent of households that self-identified to the Fed as white.
About 4.6 per
cent of wealth gains went to the 14.5 per cent of households that identified as black, and 3.8 per cent to the 10.1 per cent of households
that identified as Hispanic