American Household Wealth At New High

MMMMMM · #1 03-11-2005, 07:23 AM

Just thought this was interesting.

(excerpt) WASHINGTON, March 10 (Reuters) - Rising real estate prices and a resurgent U.S. stock market pushed the net wealth of American households to a record $48.53 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2004, the Federal Reserve said on Thursday.

In its quarterly "Flow of Funds" report, the central bank said household balance sheet values rose nearly $2 trillion above $46.59 trillion in the third quarter. U.S. household net worth pierced a new record in each of 2004's four quarters.

Higher values for real estate, equities and mutual funds led the fourth quarter net worth jump, the Fed said. Pension fund reserves and Treasury securities also posted big gains.(end excerpt)

http://www.reuters.com/printerFriend...toryID=7868333

vulturesrow · #2 03-11-2005, 11:06 AM

Hush MMMMMM, dont you know the economy is struggling? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

jaxmike · #3 03-11-2005, 12:04 PM

this is obviously false. the economy is in shambles. the tax cuts have been a terrible thing. people are lined up down city blocks looking for work. /endsarcasm

oh, but lets look at the "progressive" German economy. last i heard there was over 12% unemployment. thats proof that liberal ideology works.... works at making you dependent upon the state....

zaxx19 · #4 03-11-2005, 12:08 PM

....and in turn provides the left with a built in constituency.....

jaxmike · #5 03-11-2005, 12:18 PM

thats the only way people would possibly vote for the ignorant [censored] they propose.

andyfox · #6 03-11-2005, 02:00 PM

I think there are about 110,000,000 households, so that works out to about $436,000 per household as the mean. I wonder what the median is.

Chris Alger · #7 03-11-2005, 02:18 PM

"A household in the middle — the median household — has wealth of about $62,000." Edward Wolff, Multinational Monitor, May 2003

Which gives you some idea about how absurd it is to talk about "American households" in this context. It's like saying that "many households" saw their wealth increase by 16% last year, ignoring that these are the billionairs, according to Forbes.

One fifth of America has no net wealth that any increase could affect and are further away from accumulating any due to escalating housing prices. Most of the rest of us have an appreciated but illiquid house during what Greenspan has called a "bubble" in real estate. The only real news is that efforts to concentrate more wealth within the already wealthy are succeeding.

Screwtape · #8 03-11-2005, 06:04 PM

So you are saying people are lining up in the streets to find work

andyfox · #9 03-11-2005, 06:32 PM

Where do you see he said that?

The original poster cited an article which said that Americans' wealth was at an all-time high. I estimated the average (mean) wealth per household and questioned what the median was. Alger responded. His point is that totals and averages can sometimes serve to obscure differentials between the top and the bottom.

Chris Alger · #10 03-11-2005, 07:45 PM

[ QUOTE ]
So you are saying people are lining up in the streets to find work

[/ QUOTE ]
No, but I suppose you must mean during their lunch hour? The vast majority of people who have no net wealth either work or live in families with someone who does. Two-thirds of the poor live in wage earner families, and the poor are just the bottom 12% of the population.