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 U.S. Household Wealth Falls by $1.5 TrillionPosted on Sep 18, 2010
This just in: U.S. households are getting poorer. As the crisis continues to wreak havoc on our economy, new data from the Federal Reserve tells us that U.S. net household worth has dropped $1.5 trillion in the second quarter of 2010 and is down more than $10 trillion since the recession began. U.S. net household wealth is at $53.5 trillion, a significant drop (17 percent) from the $64.2 trillion that it was at the brink of the recession in 2007. —JCL
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By felicity, September 20, 2010 at 8:19 am Link to this comment
BenL8 - it should be noted that in your ‘numbers’ is
the fact that for every dollar held by the typical
white family, a typical black family holds ten cents.
Another ‘number’ sometimes-skewer is/was a few years
ago the combined wealth of the top 1% of Americans
was $66.8 trillion. That was $2 trillion more than
the other 90% of us.
(No wonder that 1% is quaking in its designer shoes
Report thispotentially threatened with having to pay a few more
shekels in taxes.)
By BenL8, September 19, 2010 at 3:10 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
24.1 percent of U.S. households have zero or negative net worth, this according to Edward Wolff writing for the Levy Economics Institute, March, 2010. He says between 2007-2009 the net worth plunged 17%, and this new report confirms that it is still plunging. The bottom 60% own 2.3 percent of U.S. net worth. This article is too short. I’ve written about Wolff’s report, at http://benL8.blogspot.com, or you can go to Wolff’s report or the above FRB report. Wolff says the average worth of the bottom 40 percent of households has fallen to $2,200 since 1983 when it was $6,500. We need to raise income for non-supervisory workers. Few people even think in these terms. Each worker on average generates about $100,000 of value producing a total GDP of over $14 trillion. Ask why the median income is under $33,000? Why not $100,000? That would be impractical, impossible, undesirable, ownership should be rewarded, but the U.S. has the highest Gini coefficient (of 45) in the developed world, while the EU averages 31, and German, Japan, and Denmark are around 25. Political activism could change this, the vast majority could afford living expenses. Just recently a report came out that 1 in 3 families do not earn “living expenses” or 200 times the poverty level which is about what most surveys suggest is needed. Bob Sheer at TruthDig is one of the best journalist going because he is trying to unravel all the economic mistakes of the past 30 years. Economist Robert Pollin asserts that productivity (value produced per hour) rose by 90 percent since 1972, but median hourly wages for non-supervisory workers in the same period dropped by 10 percent—and this is not on the political agenda, except maybe at liberal news web sites like TruthDig or TruthOut, and then not very often.
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, September 19, 2010 at 12:30 pm Link to this comment
I was looking around my house for that money and wondered where it went.
Report thisBy morristhewise, September 19, 2010 at 4:03 am Link to this comment
Over 30 million American adults are unable to engage in any substantial gainful
Report thisactivity by reasons of a mental impairment. Most are mentally challenged and have
problems fitting into the workplace. Many have been denied federal welfare
benefits by the Social Security Administration due to unfair choices of who is
qualified to receive assistance. There was an era where the mentally challenged
could perform simple tasks like farm or assembly line labor but those jobs have
become rare. More taxation will pay the expenses of helping our mentally
challenged brothers, unfortunately it is costly to bear that God given burden.
By Can't be Kansas, September 18, 2010 at 10:45 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Huh. The article says, “Household net worth fell to $53.5 trillion, well below the $64.2 trillion it had reached at the end of 2007 when the recession officially began, according to the central bank’s quarterly flow of funds report.”
Where do you see that household net worth is “still” $65 trillion? And what is your source for believing that that is more than the rest of the world’s assets?
According to the CIA Factbook, the EU has a slightly higher GDP than the US, though the difference is small, and BRIC taken collectively has the highest of all. Where do you get the idea that the world’s largest debtor nation is, in fact, the one with more net assets than everyone else combined, especially when it no longer has the highest GDP? Please do cite your sources.
When people can’t even read a simple article and keep simple numbers straight, much less reason about what they’ve read, I somehow wonder about our, ahem, future “productivity.” Oh well.
Report thisBy Fat Freddy, September 18, 2010 at 11:31 am Link to this comment
Yeah, and CPI is at 2-3% annually.
Next, they will tell us the grain crops are good this year *Russian Accent*.
I find it increasingly difficult to believe any of the numbers coming from the Federal Reserve. Especially, since they don’t even report all of the numbers anymore, like M3. What I do know, is that the price of gold has nearly doubled since the middle of 2008. (Not trying to be a “goldbug”, just using it as a reference.)
Just close your eyes, and click your heels and repeat, “there’s no place like the Fed”, and everything will be OK
Inflate, inflate, inflate, and borrow, borrow, borrow.
FACT:
Fractional reserve lending + Fiat Money = Debt based Currency
Report thisBy felicity, September 18, 2010 at 10:45 am Link to this comment
morristhewise - Interesting that you read the article
Report thisas pessimistic. Could you explain why?
By morristhewise, September 18, 2010 at 10:25 am Link to this comment
Total household wealth is still over 65 trillion, which is more than the rest of the
Report thisworlds assets. Pessimists make interesting reading and are mostly wrong.