Widening Gap

“While the middle class are doing worse, the rich are mainly relying on stocks, which have done well,” Wolff said. “That widens the wealth gap between the middle class and the rich.”

The economic divide is at its widest since 1983 when the Federal Reserve began keeping the data, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. In 2013, upper-income families had median wealth of $639,400, or almost seven times the median of median-income families, at $96,500.

As the 2016 presidential race begins, politicians are pointing out the dangers of inequality, but haven’t detailed remedies yet. Clinton e-mailed supporters in April that it’s not enough that families fought their way back from tough economic times “when the average CEO makes about 300 times what the average worker makes.”  

Toxic Topic

Bush stressed the lack of upward mobility in a speech in March. “We’re moving to a world that is sticky in the ends, where it’s harder for people in poverty to move up and where the rich are doing really well and the middle is getting squeezed,” he said.

Since the subprime mortgage crisis thrust the economy into a recession, both Democrats and Republicans have avoided homeownership as a politically toxic topic. But as the housing market recovers, the Obama administration has begun taking small steps to promote homebuying, such as cutting insurance premiums for mortgage insurance for lower-income Americans.

Vice President Joe Biden has been outspoken on the benefits of owning property.

“So much of the long-term wealth and access to opportunity that has occurred in the middle class for the last seventy years has been a result of families who own their home,” Biden told an audience in April in Washington.

The financial crisis, which caused about 5.2 million people to lose their homes through completed foreclosures since December 2007, shows the harm that ownership can inflict. Foreclosures typically damage credit reports for about seven years. And 10.8 percent of all mortgaged properties had negative equity, with loans that exceed home values, in the fourth quarter.