Who Benefited Most from Pandemic-Era Wealth Gains? People Who Already Owned Assets – The Aspen Institute
In 2023’s The New Wealth Agenda, we called on leaders across the nation to join us in pursuing an ambitious goal: increase tenfold the wealth of households of color and those in the bottom half of the wealth distribution by 2050.
At the time, we identified 8 objectives that, if collectively achieved, could fulfill this vision, and we also established indicators related to households’ spending, saving, assets, and debts to track progress along the way. Now, one year later, we have dug into the most recent data—notably, the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances—to chart changes and more precisely understand how households are doing financially.
The top takeaway: Between 2019 and 2022, households of all types achieved historically large growth of their net worth—a strong gain worthy of celebration. Less celebratory? Outcomes varied widely by race and ethnicity, as well as by what assets a household owned before the COVID-19 pandemic began, signaling that these gains may not be sustainable without additional action from public and private sector leaders.
Browse the full chartbook to understand the data’s important nuances, the valuable lessons learned from pandemic-era policies, and the fresh opportunities leaders have to create and strengthen wealth-building pathways for all.
An automatic stay is a legal order that can temporarily stop the insanity of collections. Learn what an automatic stay...
In Aspen this summer, the Business & Society Program hosted its annual Business & Society Summit, immediately followed by the...
There is a lot of marketing material being pushed out these days touting registered investment advisors’ expertise with upper-high-net-worth clients....