{
  "id": "RL33433",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL33433",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com, University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 435801,
      "date": "2014-11-20",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-06T22:51:55.543204",
      "title": "U.S. Family Wealth from 1989 to 2013: Evidence and Analysis",
      "summary": "U.S. family wealth has been an underlying consideration in congressional deliberations on various issues, including education, taxation, social welfare, and recovery from the 2007-2009 recession. This report analyzes the change over time in the level and concentration of family wealth as measured by net worth (i.e., assets minus liabilities) to help inform those policy deliberations.\nAccording to the Federal Reserve\u2019s latest Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), in 2013, mean family net worth was $534,600 and median family net worth was $81,200. The median is the value at which one-half of wealth-owners have lower values and one-half have higher values of wealth. The median is a more reliable indicator of the wealth of the \u201ctypical\u201d family than is the mean, which, because of the way in which the mean is calculated, can be greatly affected by a relatively small number of families with high values of net worth. Mean family net worth is more than six times median family net worth, which suggests a concentration of wealth among families at the upper end of the wealth distribution.\nThe change over time in the relationship between the mean and median indicates how the distribution of wealth across families has changed. Both mean and median net worth increased from 1989 to 2007, with the mean typically increasing to a greater extent than the median. This suggests that in recent decades wealth became more concentrated among families at the upper end of the distribution. Both measures fell between 2007 (the outset of the 2007-2009 recession) and 2010 (the first full year of recovery). The relatively greater decline in the median than in the mean between 2007 and 2010 suggests that the recession and slow recovery had a proportionately greater effect on families in the bottom half of the wealth distribution than those further up the distribution.\nAccording to a September 2014 article in the Federal Reserve Bulletin, which presents data from the 2013 SCF, \u201cThe improvements in economic activity along with changes in house and corporate equity prices combined to effectively stabilize average and median family net worth between 2010 and 2013 after both measures fell dramatically between 2007 and 2010.\u201d",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
      "formats": [
        {
          "format": "HTML",
          "encoding": "utf-8",
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/RL33433",
          "sha1": "095550b1ad8121c8bdaaf71f1a33a23e888f43f4",
          "filename": "files/20141120_RL33433_095550b1ad8121c8bdaaf71f1a33a23e888f43f4.html",
          "images": null
        },
        {
          "format": "PDF",
          "encoding": null,
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/RL33433",
          "sha1": "d96d6e9b30769038cdba425524046104576479bf",
          "filename": "files/20141120_RL33433_d96d6e9b30769038cdba425524046104576479bf.pdf",
          "images": null
        }
      ],
      "topics": []
    },
    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc98064/",
      "id": "RL33433_2012Jul17",
      "date": "2012-07-17",
      "retrieved": "2012-08-21T08:46:06",
      "title": "An Analysis of the Distribution of Wealth Across Households, 1989-2010",
      "summary": "The distribution of wealth (net worth) across households has been an underlying consideration in congressional deliberations on various issues, including taxation and social welfare. This report analyzes the change over time in the concentration of net worth (assets minus liabilities) to help inform those policy deliberations.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORT",
      "active": false,
      "formats": [
        {
          "format": "PDF",
          "filename": "files/20120717_RL33433_172c858a6174ac21c03fda10eb9f7e4a8ebe1fc7.pdf"
        },
        {
          "format": "HTML",
          "filename": "files/20120717_RL33433_172c858a6174ac21c03fda10eb9f7e4a8ebe1fc7.html"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Wealth",
          "name": "Wealth"
        },
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Economic policy",
          "name": "Economic policy"
        },
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Wealth tax",
          "name": "Wealth tax"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc811811/",
      "id": "RL33433_2011May16",
      "date": "2011-05-16",
      "retrieved": "2016-03-19T13:57:26",
      "title": "The Distribution of Household Wealth",
      "summary": null,
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORT",
      "active": false,
      "formats": [
        {
          "format": "PDF",
          "filename": "files/20110516_RL33433_af7f467d8a6a55e6087cf1cfec7c97b58256a340.pdf"
        },
        {
          "format": "HTML",
          "filename": "files/20110516_RL33433_af7f467d8a6a55e6087cf1cfec7c97b58256a340.html"
        }
      ],
      "topics": []
    },
    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc807662/",
      "id": "RL33433_2006May23",
      "date": "2006-05-23",
      "retrieved": "2016-03-19T13:57:26",
      "title": "The Concentration of Household Wealth",
      "summary": null,
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORT",
      "active": false,
      "formats": [
        {
          "format": "PDF",
          "filename": "files/20060523_RL33433_65c5592d12b1779e700d1995a711b79536aa030b.pdf"
        },
        {
          "format": "HTML",
          "filename": "files/20060523_RL33433_65c5592d12b1779e700d1995a711b79536aa030b.html"
        }
      ],
      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Economic Policy"
  ]
}