Feel That Post-Recession Bounce? The Rich Feel It the Most
By Ben Casselman, NY Times, Sept. 27, 2017
Eight years after the Great Recession officially ended, the fruits of economic growth are finally spreading to low-wage workers, racial and ethnic minorities and other groups that were largely left out of the early stages of the recovery.
But in a pattern that has become familiar in recent decades, the biggest gains continued to flow to the richest Americans.
The typical American family had a net worth of $97,300 in 2016, up 16 percent from 2013 after adjusting for inflation, according to data released by the Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday. The gains were broad-based, cutting across racial, educational and economic categories--a significant shift from the years immediately after the recession, when both income and wealth continued to decline for many families.
But despite the gains, wealth also become more concentrated:
• The richest 1 percent of households controlled 38.6 percent of total wealth in 2016, up from 36.3 percent in 2013.
• The bottom 90 percent of households controlled 22.8 percent of all wealth.
Households have made significant progress in one area: debt.
Americans are significantly less indebted than before the recession and, significantly, they are better able to afford the debts they have. The median borrower had debts equal to 95.1 percent of income in 2016; the figure was 111.1 percent before the recession and rose to 118.8 percent in the immediate aftermath. Moreover, fewer Americans report being late on debt payments, filing for bankruptcy or taking out high-interest payday loans.
One type of debt is still rising, however: student loans. More than 22 percent of families reported having education debt in 2016, up from 15 percent before the recession. The median borrower owed $19,000.
