Checkable Deposits and Currency held by the Bottom 50%

Graph #1: Held by Bottom 50% as a Percent of Total Held by 100%

Pretty sure the last drop-off (after 2019) is due to an insanely massive increase in M1 money arising from a 2020 change in Regulation D: The Fed started counting savings as part of transaction money. Probably increased "checkable deposits". I say this because all of the shares they report

• Bottom 50%
• 50th to 90th
• 90th to 99th
• Top 1%
• Top 0.1% (not used in the graph above)

show a big increase (in millions of dollars, not percent of total) since 2020. 

But obviously the bottom 50% got a smaller share of that increase, as the line goes down on Graph #1. In other words, they had little in savings before the regulation change.

So, ignoring the years after 2019, looks like the paupers' share fell from 13 or 14% in the 1990s, to 12% in the naughts, to 10% after the 2009 recession. And it looks like Biden is going to get the blame for this shit.

(I don't do politics. I do my best not to have a preference. But I would like to see the old coot try a little harder.)

PS: FRED offers an interesting table: Levels of Wealth by Wealth Percentile Groups (but only since 1989).

The table includes breakdowns by

• Total Assets
• Nonfinancial Assets
• Real Estate
• Consumer Durables
• Financial Assets
• Checkable Deposits and Currency
• Time Deposits and Short-Term Investments
• Money Market Fund Shares
• Debt Securities
• US Government Securities and Municipal Securities
• Corporate and Foreign Bonds

and too many more for me to list.

Might be useful.