Report: 10 Percent of Households Had Net Wealth of $1.3M Before Pandemic

One in 10 households in the U.S. had a net wealth of more than $1.3 million in 2019 just before the pandemic hit, according to a report published by the Census Bureau.

The report, "The Wealth of Households: 2019," was detailed in a Thursday column on The Daily Signal's website by Terence Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of CNSNews.com.

Jeffrey wrote the data shows people who study, work, marry, buy a home, and live past retirement age tend to have a greater net wealth than those who do not.

He noted the study defines "wealth" as "the value of assets owned minus the debts owed."

"Therefore wealth can be negative," the report says. "The median household wealth in 2019 was $118,200.

"The 10th percentile of household wealth was -$3,487, meaning one in ten households had wealth of -$3,487 or less.

"The 90th percentile of household wealth,was $1,301,000, meaning one in ten households had wealth exceeding $1.3 million."

Households where no one had graduated from high school had a median wealth of $5,090.

Jeffrey says the report noted that among households in which the best-educated person had graduated from high school but never attended college, it was $40,560.

In cases where the best-educated person in the household earned a bachelor’s degree, it rose to $196,800. And if the best-educated person had earned a graduate or professional degree, it jumped to over $400,000.

"Higher education was associated with more wealth," the Census Bureau notes. "Households in which the most educated member had a bachelor's degree had a median wealth … about 39 times greater than households in which no member had a high school diploma."

Meanwhile, U.S. household wealth went down for the first time in two years in the first quarter of 2022, edging down to $149.3 trillion as a drop in the stock market outweighed further gains in home values, a Federal Reserve report in June found, according to Reuters.

Household net worth decreased by $500 billion from a record $149.8 trillion at the end of last year, the Fed's quarterly report of the national balance sheet showed.