Middle- and Lower-Income Americans See Faster Wealth Depletion: Report

Americans in the middle- and lower-income groups accumulated the least wealth during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to their upper-income counterparts and are running out of disposable wealth faster, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco report. Beginning in 2020, American households accumulated more liquid assets—cash, checking, and savings accounts, and money market funds—than they would have if the COVID-19 pandemic had not happened, the Aug. 12 report said. Upper-income households acquired more relative to other classes. Fed researchers calculated how much wealth each income class would have accumulated in a “no-pandemic” scenario. They compared it with wealth gained from pandemic-era government income support and changes in consumption....