America’s average household is now a millionaire

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America has never been richer on paper. The average household is now worth $1.3 million, an extraordinary milestone that seems to confirm the prosperity of the world’s largest economy. But beneath that headline figure lies a familiar distortion. Averages can flatter. The median household, the one that truly represents the middle, has a net worth of less than $200,000. The gap between mean and median wealth tells a story not of abundance, but of deepening concentration.

That pattern runs through much of the modern economy. The gender pay gap, once narrowing rapidly, has barely moved in two decades. Women earn over 80% of what men do. Progress, yes, but a plateau nonetheless. Structural barriers such as childcare, leadership bias and unequal opportunities continue to weigh on what could have been a complete transformation. The result is an economy where participation has grown faster than fairness.

Globally, the distribution of wealth follows the same uneven logic. Prosperity and inequality now coexist more openly than ever. The richest nations are often among the most unequal. Even the world’s freedoms reflect shifting hierarchies: Singapore’s passport now ranks as the most powerful, while the United States and United Kingdom slide down the list – a small but telling symbol of global realignment.

CHART 1 • America’s average household is now a millionaire

As mentioned already, the average US household is now worth $1.3 million. A small number of ultra-wealthy households pull the figure up, while most Americans sit far below it.

Household wealth has surged in recent years thanks to soaring house prices, stock market gains and pandemic-era stimulus. Yet the median net worth – the middle household – tells a very different story, standing at around $192,000. The gap between mean and median shows how concentrated wealth has become, even as total household assets hit record levels.

Does this mark a stronger middle class or just a bigger divide between the rich and everyone else?

Source: Chartr

The threads connecting these stories are inequality, inertia and imbalance. Wealth and influence are accumulating faster than progress itself. Societies are growing richer but not fairer, freer in some ways but more constrained in others. The centre holds, but uneasily.

It’s tempting to see this as a failure of policy or politics, yet it may be something deeper: a reflection of how globalisation and technology amplify both opportunity and exclusion at once. The challenge now is not only to create more wealth or power, but to decide how to share and sustain them.

I’ve got four more charts that expand on this story, but they’re for paid subscribers. Consider joining if you want the full edition.

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