4 minEconomy
Report: Top 1% of U.S. Households Gained $1.8 Million in Two Years as Wealth Gap Widens
A new analysis from the Center for American Progress finds that the wealthiest Americans consolidated record shares of national wealth between 2024 and early 2026, while the bottom half of households added just $1,200. The findings underscore a K-shaped economy in which investment gains insulate high earners from inflation that squeezes everyone else.
The wealthiest American households pulled further ahead of everyone else over the past two years, with the top 1% adding an average of $1.8 million to their net worth between 2024 and early 2026, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. The top 0.1% did even better, gaining $9.6 million on average over the same period.
By contrast, the bottom 50% of U.S. households — roughly 68 million families — added just $1,200 in wealth over those two years. That means the upper tier of rich Americans grew their wealth by about 8,000 times more than the entire bottom half of the distribution combined.
The figures arrive as the stock market and an ongoing artificial intelligence boom continue to mint new millionaires at a rapid clip. Across three quarters of last year, the top 0.1% and the top 1% held their highest shares of national wealth ever recorded, the report found. In 2024 alone, roughly 1,000 people per day crossed the $1 million net worth threshold.
Federal tax data offers a partial view of who sits at the top. The most recent figures, which lag by a few years, show the top 1% of taxpayers reported $675,602 in adjusted gross income — income minus deductions — for tax year 2023. About 1,500 Americans reported adjusted gross income above $78.6 million that year. Those numbers capture income only, however. High-net-worth individuals typically hold more than 70% of their wealth in corporate stock and private business interests, while households in the bottom half of the distribution hold most of their wealth in real estate, primarily the homes they live in.
The result is what economists call a K-shaped economy, a term describing a split in which the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. Americans on the lower branch of the K are disproportionately affected by inflation, which has driven up the cost of everyday necessities such as food and gas. High earners on the upper branch are relatively insulated, cushioned by large investment portfolios even as prices rise for them too.
Wealthy households can absorb higher costs and lean on investments that may fluctuate but have trended sharply upward since 2020. For families with smaller monthly budgets, by contrast, high prices take a larger bite out of far less.
The psychological milestone of $1 million also no longer carries the weight it once did. In 2024, a family needed a net worth of $1.8 million just to crack the top 10% of the wealthiest U.S. households, according to an economic insight report published last year. Given the surge in tech initial public offerings and continued stock market gains, the bar for American affluence has almost certainly risen well beyond that since.
The report's findings are unlikely to surprise Americans living through the divide. For households without significant investment holdings, the path to the upper tier of wealth remains distant, even as the country produces new millionaires by the thousands each day.
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