On March 7, 2025, I highlighted Herb Stein’s article “Stability of Funds,” which appeared in David R. Henderson, ed. The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. That led to a vigorous dialogue within the Feedback part.
Frequent commenter Warren Platts famous that the U.S. Web Worldwide Funding as a share of GDP has gone downhill since about 2007 and now sits at minus 90%.
That may sound scary and it did make me marvel.
However what issues to most Individuals isn’t how a lot international funding there may be however, quite, how a lot their internet value is and the way that has modified.
So I checked out these information and was reassured.
The St. Louis Fed’s FRED website reveals U.S. households’ internet value in present {dollars} from the 4th quarter of 1987 to the 4th quarter of 2024. It rose from $17.426 trillion in 1987 to $160.345 trillion in 2024. $17.426 trillion in 1987 $ is $47.641 trillion in 2024 $. So family internet value over these 37 years elevated by 237%.
In fact, the variety of households elevated too. In line with FRED, it rose from 89.479 million in 1987 to 132.216 million in 2024.
That implies that common family wealth, in 2024 {dollars}, rose from $532,426 in 1987 to $1,217,504 in 2024, a rise of 129%.
How about for the shorter interval referenced by commenter Platts: 2007 to 2024?
In 2007, family internet value was $65.754 trillion. In 2024 $, that’s $98.702 trillion. So family internet value elevated by 62.5%.
The variety of households elevated from 116.011 million in 2007 to 132.216 million in 2024.
So family internet value per family elevated from $850,799 in 2007 to $1,217,504 in 2024, a rise of 43%.
Observe that these are averages, not medians. The online value for a median family at every time limit is under the common.
However what issues right here is the common, on condition that the difficulty is the scenario of the US as a complete. It says that on common, Individuals are getting wealthier regardless of (perhaps partly due to?) elevated international funding.
