Rich Get Richer, But Not as Fast As You Think
The Federal Reserve does a lot of things. It sets interest rates. It issues dollar bills. It regulates banks. And once every three years it tells us how well America's rich are doing and if they're getting richer.
The word from the Fed's new Survey of Consumer Finances: The rich are doing extremely well. But their slice of the pie doesn't seem to be growing as fast as one might expect in light of the persistent widening of the gap between annual incomes of rich and poor.
American families had net worth -- the value of houses, cars, 401(k) plans, stock portfolios and saving accounts minus mortgages and other debts -- of $50 trillion in 2004, according to the Fed. Its estimate is based on surveys of 4,522 families, with special efforts to include the rich.
How much better off than others are the wealthy?
Those in the 90th percentile -- not Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, but those with bigger balance sheets than 90% of American families -- had net worth of $831,600 in 2004.
That's nearly nine times the $93,100 held by the family at the statistical middle. And it's 62 times the net worth of families at the 25th percentile, the ones who don't have much, but have more than the poorest 25%, many of whom have more debts than assets.
SHARE OF THE WEALTH
See more information on the division of wealth in the U.S.
Read a summary of the Fed's survey. (Adobe Acrobat required.)
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WSJ's David Wessel discusses the ever-widening wealth gap between the rich and poor.Despite some disappointments in the stock market, the typical family in that top tenth enjoyed a 4.5% gain since 2001 and 71% since 1995, after adjusting for inflation. The family at the middle saw a more modest increase of 1.5% over 2001, much less than during the '90s boom, and an increase of 31% since 1995. If not for rising house prices the typical family at the middle would have been worse off than it was three years earlier.
How big a slice does the top 10% carve? Nearly 70% of that $50 trillion is in the hands of the richest 10% of American families, as the chart accompanying this column shows.
The next richest 40% -- those whose net worth was between $93,100 and $831,600 in 2004 -- held about 28% of the wealth.
That left about 2.5% of all household wealth in the U.S. to be shared by the 56 million families in the bottom half of the pyramid.
So, is the wealthiest tenth getting an ever-bigger share?
Yes, but only by a slight margin. The Fed says the top tenth held 69.5% of household net worth in 2004, up from 67.4% in 1989.
Two important caveats: One, we're generalizing about the merely rich here, not the super-rich. The Fed survey explicitly excludes folks on the Forbes 400 list of the very wealthiest Americans, and the Fed hasn't yet broken out the latest numbers on the richest one million families, the 1% upper crust. Past Fed surveys find that that top 1% holds about one-third of the wealth and the next 9% hold another third.
CAPITAL EXCHANGE
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capital@wsj.comAnd, two, as New York University economist Edward Wolff observes, the Fed doesn't count defined-benefit pension plans, money that, in a sense, belongs to the workers to whom pensions have been promised. Recent atrophying of these pension promises hurts the middle and upper-middle class more than the very top; ignoring that may understate the increasing concentration of wealth at the top.
Nevertheless, economist Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley, who has dissected decades of estate-tax returns and other data to track the fortunes of the rich, says the Fed survey matches other evidence. While the super-rich -- the Forbes 400 crowd -- are enjoying a bigger slice, the share going to the broader class of rich Americans has been stable for the past couple decades, he says.
That's a surprise given that the top tier gets an ever-bigger share of annual income. Mr. Saez offers two possible explanations. One is that the folks getting those fat paychecks and stock options are spending the money on fine wine, travel and skybox seats so they're not accumulating wealth. Except for hip-hop stars and ballplayers, that sounds like a stretch.
The other is more plausible. In the early years of the 20th century, John D. Rockefeller and the like had handsome incomes not because they drew large paychecks or bonuses, but because they collected interest, dividends, capital gains and rents on their formidable fortunes.
But many Americans with big incomes today aren't simply clipping coupons or selling empires. They're cashing huge CEO- or quarterback-size paychecks and collecting bonuses, commissions and stock-option windfalls.
They simply haven't had time to turn those big incomes into big wealth -- yet.
美国富人更富了
美国联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve)的工作确实很繁忙。它要设定利率、发行美元债券、对银行进行监管。每隔三年它还要告诉我们美国富人的境况如何，他们是否变得更富有了。
Fed的最新消费者财务状况调查(Survey of Consumer Finances)给出了答案：富人们的境况相当好。但尽管富人和穷人的年收入差距越拉越大，富人财富的增长速度却并不像人们预计的那么快。
Fed的数据显示，美国家庭的资产净值──房屋、车辆、401(k)计划、证券投资和存款减去按揭贷款及其他债务──2004年时为50万亿美元。这个估算是根据对4,522户家庭的调查得出的，并特别注意将富人纳入其中。
富人的资产比其他人要高出多少呢？
2004年，资产净值位于前10%的美国家庭（即高于90%的美国家庭）平均拥有831,600美元净资产。
这个数字是排在前50%水平上的美国家庭资产净值（93,100美元）的近9倍，是排在后25%水平上的家庭资产净值的62倍，而在最贫穷的25%家庭中，许多家庭的负债要高于资产。
尽管股市的表现不尽人意，但经通货膨胀因素调整后，前10%家庭的资产净值比2001年时增长了4.5%，比1995年时增长了71%。中间水平家庭的资产净值比2001年仅温和增长了1.5%，增速大大低于90年代的经济繁荣期，比1995年增长了31%。如果不是房屋价格的上涨，中间水平普通家庭的资产情况会比3年前要糟。
前10%的美国家庭共拥有多少净资产呢？在50万亿的资产净值中美国最富有的前10%的家庭占据了接近70%。
而10%至50%区间内的美国家庭──即2004年资产净值在93,100美元至831,600美元的家庭──拥有大约28%的资产净值。
位于平均线之下的5,600万户美国家庭在50万亿美元的资产净值中合计拥有这个数字的大约2.5%。
如此看来，10%最富有的家庭占有的比例是否比以前更高了？
是的，但只是略有增加。Fed称，前10%的家庭在2004年拥有美国家庭资产净值总额的69.5%，高于1989年时的67.4%。
值得注意的两点：其一，我们在这里归纳的只是富人，而不是巨富。Fed的调查明确去掉了进入《福布斯》(Forbes)前400名的最富有的美国人，Fed也还没有公布前1%，也就是最富有的100万户家庭的最新数据。Fed过去的调查发现，前1%的家庭拥有大约三分之一的财富，前10%中剩余9%的家庭也拥有大约三分之一的财富。
第二点是，就像纽约大学(New York University)经济学家爱德华?沃尔夫(Edward Wolff)所注意到的，Fed并没有计算已经向员工承诺的退休金计划。最近对退休金承诺的减少给中产阶级和中上阶层的打击要甚于最富有的阶层；忽视这点可能会低估财富越来越向最富有家庭集中的程度。
尽管如此，加州大学伯克利分校的经济学家以马利?萨伊斯(Emmanuel Saez)表示，Fed的调查同其它证据是一致的。他说，虽然《福布斯》前400名巨富所拥有财富的比例上升了，但在过去20年里美国富人拥有的财富比例总体上保持了稳定。
鉴于最高阶层年收入所占比例进一步提高，这个论点令人惊讶。萨伊斯提供了两种可能的解释。第一是获得丰厚收入和股票期权的人们将金钱花到高档酒、旅行和头等舱机票中，因此未能积累财富。不过除了摇滚歌星和球星之外，这点听起来有些牵强附会。
另一个原因更合理些。在20世纪初，洛克菲勒(John D. Rockefeller)等大亨拥有不菲收入不是因为获得了高额的工资或奖金，而是从他们惊人的财富中获得了利息、股息、资本增值和租金。
但当今许多高收入的美国人却不是通过息票或是出售企业致富的。他们的收入主要来自于担任企业高管或运动员的薪资，以及获得的奖金、佣金和股票期权收入。
他们只是没有时间将丰厚的收入转化为财富──至少目前是这样。
