The new K-shaped economy splits the rich from the ultra-rich: The top 0.1% averages more than $200 million—and is pulling away from the rest of the 1%
Source: Fortune ·
The top 0.1%'s wealth has more than doubled since 2019, compared with 68% growth for the rest of the top 1%, according to Federal Reserve data
From the source
Rich Americans are getting richer, but not all equally. The K-shaped split that let high earners pull away from low earners now cuts through the top 1% too, with the ultra-rich far ahead of the rest. The average household in the top 0.1% is now worth about $204 million, or 7.7 times as much as one in the rest of the top 1%, according to a Fortune analysis of Federal Reserve data. That ratio is the highest in the Fed’s quarterly series going back to 1989, up from 6.2 times at the end of 2019. Currently, the Fed counts 136,779 households in the top 0.1% The top 0.1%’s wealth has more than doubled since the end of 2019, from $13.4 trillion to nearly $28 trillion in the second quarter of 2026. Over the same period, the rest of the top 1% saw its wealth grow 68%, from $19.3 trillion to $32.5 trillion. The top 0.1% now holds 15% of the nation’s household wealth, up 0.5 percentage point since the first quarter. “We are talking about continued redistribution upward and further concentration…