Data-backed research article
Summary
Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts data shows that the combined top 1 percent share of U.S. household net worth rose from 22.8% in 1989:Q3 to 31.9% in 2025:Q4.
That is an increase of 9.1 percentage points over the full period covered by the current chart page.
This matters because wealth is different from income. Income is money received over time. Wealth is accumulated ownership after assets and debts are counted. Wealth affects security, opportunity, influence, and the ability to pass advantage to the next generation.
What the chart shows
The first Wealth Reform Project chart uses the Federal Reserve file dfa-networth-shares.csv. It reads the Net worth column and compares household wealth shares across several groups.
| Group | 1989:Q3 | 2025:Q4 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Combined Top 1% | 22.8% | 31.9% | +9.1 percentage points |
| Top 0.1% | 8.6% | 14.5% | +5.9 percentage points |
| Remaining Top 1% | 14.2% | 17.4% | +3.2 percentage points |
| Next 9% | 38.0% | 36.4% | -1.6 percentage points |
| Next 40% | 35.7% | 29.2% | -6.5 percentage points |
| Bottom 50% | 3.5% | 2.5% | -1.0 percentage points |
The main finding
The main finding is that the top 1 percent’s share of household net worth grew substantially over the period shown. The top 0.1 percent alone increased from 8.6% to 14.5% of household net worth.
At the same time, the Next 40% and Bottom 50% lost share. The bottom half of households started with a small share of total household net worth and ended with an even smaller one.
Why this matters
Wealth is not just a number on a balance sheet. It affects how much risk a household can survive. A family with savings, home equity, retirement assets, or business ownership can handle job loss, illness, relocation, education costs, and emergencies more easily than a family with little or no net worth.
Wealth also affects opportunity. It can help a person start a business, buy a home, reduce debt, attend school, retire, or help children and grandchildren. When wealth becomes more concentrated, these advantages become more concentrated too.
Why income is not enough
Income tells us how much money comes into a household during a period of time. Net worth tells us what remains after assets and debts are counted. A household can work steadily and still have little wealth if most of its income is absorbed by rent, transportation, healthcare, childcare, debt payments, and other basic costs.
That is why wealth reform has to look beyond wages alone. Better wages matter, but if households cannot convert income into ownership, savings, or reduced debt, then long-term security remains weak.
Connection to reform proposals
This finding supports the need to evaluate reforms that broaden ownership and improve household balance sheets. Examples could include worker wealth accounts, stronger retirement access, housing affordability reforms, first-home ownership support, debt reduction strategies, and policies that reduce excessive concentration of economic power.
The chart does not prove that any one reform is correct. It does show that wealth concentration is measurable and that the distribution of household net worth has changed over time.
Limitations
This is an early analysis page. The current chart uses one Federal Reserve DFA file and focuses on net worth shares. Future analysis should compare additional data sources, review definitions carefully, and examine other dimensions such as age, income, race, education, and asset type.
The numbers on this page should therefore be treated as a starting point for research, not the final word on wealth distribution.
Next steps
The next data project should compare wealth shares with wealth levels. Shares show how the total pie is divided. Levels show how many dollars each group owns. Both are needed to understand the scale of wealth concentration.
Another useful next chart would compare the combined top 1 percent directly with the bottom 50 percent over time.