Posted by alexandra_k on November 26, 2005, at 20:17:32
In reply to Re: just one more... » Dinah, posted by alexandra_k on November 26, 2005, at 20:11:54
Ah. Here we go (from the above link)
MM: A couple years ago there was a great deal of talk of the democratization of the stock market. Is that reflected in these figures, or was it an illusion?
Wolff: I would say it was more of an illusion. What did happen is that the percentage of households with some ownership of stocks, including mutual funds and pension accounts like 401(k)s, did go up very dramatically over the last 20 years. In 1983, only 32 percent of households had some ownership of stock.By 2001, the share was 51 percent. So there has been much more widespread stock ownership, in terms of number of families.
But a lot of these families have very small stakes in the stock market. In 2001, only 32 percent of households owned more than $10,000 of stock, and only 25 percent of households owned more than $25,000 worth of stock.
So a lot of these new stock owners have had relatively small holdings of stock. There hasn’t been much dilution in the share of stock owned by the richest 1 or 10 percent. Stock ownership is still heavily concentrated among rich families. The richest 10 percent own 85 percent of all stock.
As a result, the stock market boom of the 1990s disproportionately benefited rich families. There were some gains by middle class families, but their average stock holdings were too small to make much difference in their overall wealth.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:578654
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20051121/msgs/582510.html