Second live data chart
What this chart shows
This chart uses Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts data to show the estimated dollar level of household net worth held by different wealth groups over time.
The first wealth chart showed shares: what percentage of total household net worth each group owns. This chart shows levels: the estimated dollar amount of household net worth held by each group.
Net worth levels over time
Key takeaway
Wealth shares show how the total wealth pie is divided. Wealth levels show the size of the dollar amounts involved. Both views are needed. A group can hold a falling share while still holding more dollars if the total amount of household wealth grows over time.
This chart helps show the scale of wealth concentration in dollar terms. It is especially useful when read together with the first wealth share chart.
Latest available quarter
Change from first to latest quarter
Source and method
This page reads the Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts raw data file named dfa-networth-levels.csv. It uses the Date, Category, and Net worth columns.
The page also calculates a combined Top 1% series by adding TopPt1 and RemainingTop1 for each quarter.
The values are displayed as trillions of dollars for readability. This is an early data page, so future versions should add more detailed source notes and cross-checks against Federal Reserve documentation.
How to read the groups
| Category | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Top1Combined | Combined top 1 percent of households: TopPt1 plus RemainingTop1. |
| TopPt1 | Top 0.1 percent of households. |
| RemainingTop1 | The rest of the top 1 percent, excluding the top 0.1 percent. |
| Next9 | The next 9 percent of households. |
| Next40 | The next 40 percent of households. |
| Bottom50 | The bottom 50 percent of households. |