The data is in, and it paints a stark picture of a society increasingly divided by wealth and opportunity. A new report from the Federal Reserve shows that the so-called "K-shaped" economic recovery is alive and well, with the rich getting richer while the poor fall further behind.
What this really means is that the top 1% of households now control a staggering 31.7% of all U.S. wealth - the highest level on record since the Fed began tracking this data in 1989. To put that in perspective, that 1% owns about as much wealth as the entire bottom 90% of Americans combined.
A Tale of Two Economies
The growing divide is being driven in large part by surging stock prices, which have disproportionately benefited the wealthy. As Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi explains, "Wealthier households tend to benefit most from bull markets because a larger share of their wealth is invested in stocks and other securities."
Meanwhile, middle- and lower-income Americans have seen their wealth growth stall or slow to a crawl. Gallup data shows that 87% of stock ownership is concentrated among households earning $100,000 or more per year - leaving the majority of Americans on the sidelines as the rich pull further away.
Implications for Society
The bigger picture here is that this level of inequality poses serious risks, not just for the economy, but for the very fabric of society. As the Oxfam International report found, billionaire wealth grew three times faster in 2025 than the average annual rate over the previous five years.
Reducing this extreme divide is "not only about fairness, but essential for the resilience of economies, the stability of democracies, and the viability of our planet," the authors of the World Inequality Report 2026 argue. With the richest 0.001% controlling three times the wealth of the entire bottom half of humanity, the time for action is now.