A Staggering Amount of Wealth Creation

The collective net worth of American households reached roughly $66 trillion by the end of 2007. The 2008 crash wiped out $11 trillion in wealth, falling to $55 trillion by early-2009.

Today, Americans are worth more than $154 trillion (and yes this is netted out for debts). We’ve gained $100 trillion over the past 15 years.

While the stock market and overall net worth numbers bottomed in the first quarter of 2009, the net worth for the bottom 50% kept falling into 2011. From a high of $1.5 trillion before the crash, the net worth for the bottom 50% plunged all the way to $236 billion by Q1 of 2011.

From there, it climbed all the way back to $1.9 trillion by early 2020, then went up another level during the pandemic, hitting a record of more than $3.8 trillion in the latest reading.

Stocks, housing prices, net worth, home equity — everything is at all-time highs and the gains over the past 4+ years are unlike anything we’ve ever experienced in the modern economic age.

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