How Wealthy Was the Middle Class the Year You Were Born

It is often said that the American middle class is shrinking or that its wealth is getting squeezed as inequality rises. While the size of the middle class may have increased over the years, the share of the wealth it captures has not.

Another factor now threatens to further put a dent in the middle class’s share of wealth – inflation. As household incomes fail to increase at an equal rate to inflation, the number of families struggling to pay rent or mortgages is increasing, putting an additional squeeze on their share of wealth. (Here is what it costs to retire comfortably in every state.)

To identify the wealth of the middle class the year you were born, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the total wealth of the middle 40% of households for each year going back to 1976 from Real Time Inequality, which provides statistics on how economic growth is distributed across groups. The middle class – defined as the 40% of households – is all households whose wealth falls between the 30th and 70th percentiles (or between the upper 30% and bottom 30%). 

The results show that while the wealth of the middle 40% of households (which has been adjusted for inflation) is increasing, the share of wealth that the middle class holds has been decreasing fairly steadily since 1985. In the 36 years since then, the middle class has gone from owning 35.5% of all wealth to owning 24.5% in 2021. 

One reason for this is that the wealth of the top 10% of households is increasing at a rate disproportionate to the increase of total wealth for all households. According to data from the U.S. Federal Reserve, the wealthiest 10% of Americans control $93.8 trillion – which is more than double the $40.3 trillion controlled by the remaining 90% of Americans. 

The upward redistribution of incomes over the last few decades has cost the bottom 90% of income earners about $50 trillion since 1975, which was captured by the top 1%. It is no surprise that the U.S. is one of the countries with the worst wealth inequality.

Click here to see how wealthy the middle class was the year you were born
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