Percentage points gained by the top 1%
22.81% in 1989 Q3 → 31.63% in 2026 Q1. The record peak was 31.81% in 2025 Q4.
Federal Reserve DFA
02 / The record, 1989 to 2026
The Data
The Federal Reserve has published a quarterly measure of who owns American household wealth since 1989. This page charts all 147 quarters of it, unaltered.
Hover or tap any point on the chart to read the exact figures for that quarter.
147
Consecutive quarters of Federal Reserve data plotted below, from 1989 Q3 to 2026 Q1.
Chart 01 / Share of total US household wealth
The lines cross
The lines cross
and never come back
Each line is one group's percentage of all US household net worth. Use the buttons to add or remove groups.
What the chart shows
+8.8
−1.06
0.39%
8.5×
Four readings
Percentage points lost by the bottom 50%
3.51% in 1989 Q3 → 2.45% in 2026 Q1. A relative decline of about 30%.
Federal Reserve DFAThe record low
In 2010 Q4, after the housing crash, the bottom half of American households collectively held under four tenths of one percent of national household wealth.
Federal Reserve DFATotal wealth growth since 1989
$20.4 trillion → $174.0 trillion. The pie grew 8.5 times over. The bottom half's slice of it shrank.
Federal Reserve DFA, nominal dollars
Chart 02 / In dollars, not percentages
The gap in
The gap in
trillions
Percentages can hide scale. This is the same data measured in dollars. In 1989 the top 1% held $4.66 trillion and the bottom half held $0.72 trillion, a gap of $3.9 trillion. Today that gap is $50.8 trillion.
Chart 03 / The shape of the gap
Every household,
Every household,
poorest to richest
Line every US household up from poorest to richest and walk along the row. At each point the curve shows how much of the country's wealth you have counted so far. If wealth were spread evenly the line would be the straight diagonal. The yellow area between the two is the gap.
The underlying numbers
Year-end figures
Fourth-quarter values for every year on record, plus the most recent quarter. Shares are of total US household net worth.
| Quarter | Top 0.1% | Top 1% | Next 9% | Middle 40% | Bottom 50% | Total wealth |
|---|
Source: Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts. Total wealth in nominal dollars.
Methodology
Why some sources
Federal Reserve DFA
Congressional Budget Office
Survey of Consumer Finances
Mean vs. median
Why some sources
report different numbers
Credible sources publish different wealth-share figures. They are not contradicting each other. They are measuring different things, and here is what changes.
Top 1% = 31.63%
Quarterly. Combines the Survey of Consumer Finances with the Financial Accounts of the United States so the totals match national aggregates. Counts marketable assets: property, equities, businesses, pensions held as accounts.
This is the series charted above, because it is the most frequently updated and the most directly comparable across time.
Top 1% = 27%
For 2022, CBO reported the top 10% held 60% of wealth and the top 1% held 27%, lower concentration than the Fed reports.
The reason: CBO includes accrued Social Security benefits as an asset. Social Security is a large share of what lower- and middle-wealth families own, so counting it reduces measured concentration. Both figures are correct under their own definitions.
Median net worth = $192,900
A triennial household survey, most recently for 2022. It is the underlying source for household-level detail such as median wealth and wealth by race.
The SCF deliberately excludes the Forbes 400. Because the very top is omitted, SCF-only estimates understate concentration at the extreme.
$1.06M vs. $192,900
Average US household net worth is about $1.06 million. Median household net worth is about $192,900.
The average is roughly 5.5× the median. That distance is itself a measure of concentration: a small number of very large fortunes pull the average far above what a typical household actually holds.