The Asset Price Meltdown, Rising Leverage, and the Wealth of the Middle Class

Edward Wolff

Journal of Economic Issues, 2013, vol. 47, issue 2, 333-342

Abstract: This article investigates wealth trends from 1983 to 2010. The most telling finding is that median wealth plummeted by 47 percent over the years from 2007 to 2010. The inequality of net worth, following two decades of little movement, was up sharply between 2007 and 2010. Relative indebtedness continued to expand during the late 2000s for the middle class, although the proximate causes were declining net worth and income, rather than an increase in absolute indebtedness. In fact, the average debt of the middle class in real terms was down by 25 percent. The sharp fall in median net worth and the rise in its inequality from 2007 to 2010 are traceable to the high leverage of middle class families and the high relative importance of homes in their portfolio.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2753/JEI0021-3624470205 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:47:y:2013:i:2:p:333-342

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MJEI20

DOI: 10.2753/JEI0021-3624470205

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Economic Issues from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().