The Bottom 50% of Americans Are Building Wealth Even as Inflation Bites
The lower half of US households have continued to fare better than the middle class in 2022 in terms of wealth growth.
The US working class has been buoyed by wage gains in one of the tightest labor markets in decades.
Photographer: Bing Guan/BloombergIn an eight-minute speech last week that sent stock markets tumbling, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell echoed what he’s said before about the importance of containing surging consumer prices: “The burdens of high inflation fall heaviest on those who are least able to bear them.”
Yet data filtered through the Realtime Inequality tracker provide a nuanced picture of how the bottom 50% of US households are faring in today’s economy. The group, generally those with a net worth of $166,000 or less before the pandemic, are in the strongest relative financial position in a generation.