The wealthiest have gotten richer, and control a record share of America’s wealth. New data suggest $1 trillion of wealth was created for the 19 richest American households alone in 2024. That’s more than the value of Switzerland’s entire economy.
It took four decades for the top 0.00001% of Americans’ share of total U.S. household wealth to grow from 0.1% in 1982—when 11 households made up that rarefied group—to 1.2% in 2023, according to an analysis by Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Paris School of Economics.
In one year, by the end of 2024, the share of total U.S. household wealth for the modern 0.00001%—those 19 households—jumped to 1.8%, or about $2.6 trillion. That is the biggest one-year increase on record, according to Zucman.
