Link: WealthandWant.com: Wealth Tables 50-40-5-4-1.

I took the data provided in the Federal Reserve Board’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances and reported in Currents and Undercurrents: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth, 1989-2004, Tables 10 and 11, and massaged the data in some ways that I don’t think anyone else has. I found some of the results exciting and interesting, and think others might too. My results show – not surprisingly, but very dramatically – that it is not so much that poorer people have fewer kinds of assets, but that even those who possess the assets have far less each, on average, than do the top 1%ers, or even the next 9%ers.

The linked page has 7 tables:

Within each table the lines are pretty consistent:

  • total net worth;
  • total assets;
  • financial assets, with its subsets: liquid assets, CDs, savings bonds, bonds, stocks, mutual funds (outside of retirement accts), retirement accounts, cash, other managed assets, other financial assets;
  • nonfinancial assets, with its subsets: vehicles, houses, other residential real estate, non-residential real estate, businesses, and other nonfinancial assets;
  • debt, with its subsets: mortgage and home equity loans, other residential debt, installment debt, other lines of credit, credit card balances, other debt/
  • equity – a subtotal of direct and indirect stock holdings in stocks and retirement assets, but not in mutual funds, etc.
  • income for the preceding year

Those are the SCF-provided categories; I’ve created 27 groupings of those which one might find of interest for various reasons [lines 31-57].

The income groups are as follows:

  • top 1%
  • next 4%
  • next 5%
  • next 40%
  • bottom 50% – all based on net worth

You can find similar data aggregated to top 1% / next 9% / bottom 90% at http://www.wealthandwant.com/issues/wealth/90-9-1_Tables.html.

Here’s some detail on each one: Table W50-1 Dollar Holdings and change, by Networth Quantile — 1989 and 2004 This is the dollar value held by each net worth quantile group. For example, of the $50.3 trillion in holdings in 2004, the top 1% of us had $16.8 trillion. [line 1, column 12]Table W50-2 Corner Percentages: Each Quantile’s Share of Aggregate Networth, 1989 and 2004 This shows the relative importance of each quantile’s holdings to the aggregate net worth. For example,

  • the financial assets held by the top 1% of us represent 13.26% of total net worth [line 3, column 12], and their ownership of closely held businesses represents 12.20% of net worth [line 19, column 12.
  • Ownership of closely held businesses by the next 4% of us represents 4.39% of aggregate net worth.
  • Holdings of vehicles and houses by the bottom 50% of us represent 5.50% of aggregate net worth, and by the next 40% of us represent 20.98% of aggregate net worth [Line 40, columns 8 & 9]
  • but when mortgages and car loans are factored in, those figures drop to 1.58% and 13.13% of aggregate net worth [Line 41, columns 8 & 9]!

Table W50-3 Wealth Shares and Percent Change by Networth Quantile — 1989 and 2004

  • 33.4% of aggregate net worth is held by the top 1%, and this is up 3.3 points from 1989 to 2004 [Line 1, coumns 12 and 18].
  • Over 70% of bonds are held by the top 1%, and over 50% of stocks.
  • Over 62% of business equity [“small businesses”] are held by the top 1%.
  • Combining stocks, mutual funds and retirement assets [line 32], 57.0% of assets are held by the top 5%.
  • The bottom 90% of us hold 50.6% of the value of home equity, car equity and retirement assets [line 43].

Table W50-4: Dollar Change, Percent Chg and Shares of Dollar Change, by Networth Quantile

  • Net Worth increased overall by 94.4% between 1989 and 2004, but by 115.7% in the top 1%, and the top 1% received 36.9% of the growth; the next 5% received 24.2% of the growth.
  • Financial Assets increased overall by 132.4%; for the top 1%, by 159.9%, with the top 1% receiving 34.1% of the growth.
  • Business Equity increased by 78.6% overall; the top 1%’s holdings increased by 108.7%, and they received 73.8% of the growth.
  • The value of Houses grew by 106.6%; the value of holdings by the bottom 50% increased by 149.0%, and they captured 13.6% of the growth; the top 1%’s holdings increased by 209.1% , and they captured 17.6% of the growth.

Table W50-5 Ownership Rates, by Networth Quantile - nonadditive - 1989, 2004 and Point Change

  • Ownership of Retirement Assets increased from 37.0% to 49.7%. The biggest point change was in the ’next 40%’ group, from 51.5% to 67.3%
  • Ownership of “other residential real estate” and “nonresidential real estate” actually fell from 1989 to 2004. So did ownership of “business equity.”
  • The incidence of debt rose; it is highest in the ’next 40%’ quantile.

Table W50-6 Ownership Rates by Networth Quantile - additive - 1989 and 2004

  • Of the 20.7% of us who have holdings of individual stocks, over half (11.1%) are in the ’next 40%’ group. [This is part of the answer to “do you own an oil company?” – but ONLY part!]
  • Of the 49.7% of us who have retirement assets, 27.1% are in the ’next 40%’ group. (same caution applies!)
  • Of the 11.5% of us who have “business equity,” only 0.7% are in the top 1%

Table W50-7 Holdings per 1% who hold, by Networth Quantile — 1989 and 2004 This table’s data are the ones I find most interesting – and which you won’t find anywhere else:

  • Average holdings per 1% of us who own individual stocks in the top 1% is $2,713 compared to $34 in the ’next 40%’ quantile.
  • Average holdings per 1% of us who have retirement assets in the top 1% is $1,109 compared to $96 in the ’next 40%’ quantile and $16 each in the ‘bottom 50%’ quantile.
  • Average holdings per 1% of us who have business equity in the top 1% is $8,503 compared to $157 in the ’next 40%’ quantile and $21 each in the ‘bottom 50%’ quantile.

Table W50-8 Holdings per 1% who hold - Change and Percent Change, 1989-2004, by Networth Quantile

  • Average holdings per 1% who hold stocks increased by 118.1% overall, but by 244.1% in the ’top 1%’ quantile, and only 7.9% in the bottom 50% quantile.
  • Average holdings per 1% who hold retirement assets increased by 161.1% overall, and by more than that for holders in the top 1%, next 4% and next 5% – and less than that in the bottom 50% and next 40% quantiles.
  • Average holdings per 1% who hold business equity increased by 69.5% overall, and showed the largest percentage increase in the “next 4%’ quantile.

So do you really own an oil company?? Who owns our natural resources?? To whom do the airwaves belong?

Tell me again about “Wall Street and Main Street,” George!