econcrit: Checkable Deposits and Currency held by the Bottom 50%

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

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