Is Wealth Becoming More Polarized in the United States?

The contributors to this comprehensive book compile and analyse the latest data available on household wealth using, as case studies, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Finland during the 1990s and into the twenty-first century. The authors show that in the US, trends are highlighted in terms of wealth holdings, among the low-income population, along with changes in wealth polarization, racial differences in wealth holdings, and the dynamics of portfolio choices. The consensus between the authors is that wealth inequality has generally risen among these OECD countries since the early 1980s, although Germany stands out as an exception. In the case of the US, it is also noted that wealth holdings have generally failed to improve among low-income families and that the racial wealth gap widened during the late 1980s.