Retail investors in the U.S. controlled a record $68.3 trillion in investable assets at the end of 2020, up from $52 trillion in March 2020 during the Covid-19 volatility and $60.1 trillion at the end of 2019 before the crisis hit. But the lion’s share of that wealth is in the hands of, well, the wealthy, according to a new report by Hearts & Wallets.
The research, which drew from a database of 5,920 U.S. households in August 2020, found that nearly 80% of the wealth, or $53.8 trillion, is held by about 10% or 11.2 million households with $1 million or more. It noted that there was an increase of $29 trillion in retail investable assets over the past seven years that was spread across households with $500,000 and up, but more than 80%, or $10.3 trillion, of the Covid market run-up of $12.7 trillion went to households with $5 million or more.
Those with the most assets are heavily concentrated among the 55 to 74 age group, and these older, wealthier households control $40.2 trillion of the $68.3 trillion, or nearly two-thirds (59%) of all U.S. retail investable assets, the report found. And among this group, 1% with $5 million or more control 32% of all U.S. retail investable assets, the report noted.
Nearly two-thirds of the dollars of investable assets ($43.5 trillion) are stashed away in taxable accounts, while 36% is in retirement accounts ($24.8 trillion). Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are the biggest component of consumer-controlled retirement assets at 49% or $12.1 trillion, followed by defined contribution assets at 39% (or $9.6 trillion) and annuities at 12% (or $3.1 trillion), the report noted.
The report further noted that real estate, future pension benefits and equity in non-corporate businesses are also important components of household wealth. (Real estate assets make up 19%, future pension benefits make up 9%, and equity in non-corporate businesses make up 12%.) The report pointed out that the total does not include an estimate of net present value of future Social Security payments, another important component of household resources.
While those in the $5 trillion-plus group were gaining, the report found that the wealth groups often referred to as mass affluent declined. The mass affluent “took a major hit over the past 18 months as the Covid market run-up polarized wealth concentration in America,” said Laura Varas, CEO and founder of Hearts & Wallets, in a statement. “Simplified investment solutions could encourage the mass affluent to engage with the capital markets,” she added.
In 2019, the report said those in the mass affluent wealth category (those with $100,000 to just under $500,000 in assets) included 25.3 million households controlling $7.5 trillion. But in 2020, those in this category dropped to 21.9 million households, and they controlled only $5.6 trillion. The loss, the report noted, resulted in a one-year decline of 3.6 million households and $1.9 trillion less in investable assets controlled.
Some of those households left the category by moving into higher wealth groups after benefiting from their savings and equity exposure during the market run-up. But there weren’t enough households in asset groups below the mass affluent moving up (as they did in previous years) to make up for that loss.
In fact, the report cited 2.7 million more households with $500,000 to $2 million than there were before the Covid market run-up and said the wealth controlled by these households increased by $2.1 trillion. While that is encouraging, the report said, it bodes poorly for the U.S. that the lower end of the mass affluent category is shrinking. “Reversing the trend of ever more complicated investment products may help to give more lower-asset households access to capital markets, putting the power of compounding growth to work for their savings,” the report suggested.
The report pointed out that the oldest and richest will continue to control the wealth going forward, as the fastest growing age group is 75-plus. Those households will increase by 40% to 20.8 million, up from 14.9 million, and by 2030, households age 75-plus will be 15% of all households while they were only 12% of all households in 2020, the report said.
Because most Americans are living beyond 75, the report indicates that the wealth transfer will actually go from silent generation households to Gen X heirs, even though the conventional wisdom is that it’s baby boomers who will transfer wealth to millennials, the report said.
“It’s a real head-scratcher that we hear people talk about wealth transfer from boomers to millennials as often as we do. Boomers are currently ages 56 to 74 and, like all of us, they will die eventually, but not soon. On the other hand, silent generation households are currently age 75 to 92. Their children are about 30 years younger, or 45 to 62, placing them squarely in Gen X (currently 40-55) or younger boomers (currently 56-74),” the report noted.