The gap between the rich and the very, very rich is getting wider

illuminem summarises for you the essential news of the day, reviewed by our editorial team. Read the full piece on The Wall Street Journal or enjoy below:

🗞️ Driving the news: The wealth gap is widening not only between the richest Americans and everyone else, but also within the upper end of the wealth distribution
• Federal Reserve data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal show that the wealth of the top 0.1% has more than doubled since the end of 2019, fueled largely by gains in financial markets

🔭 The context: The stock-market boom has added trillions of dollars to the net worth of America’s wealthiest households
• The top 0.1% now holds about 15% of total US household wealth, with average wealth exceeding $200 million per household
• The divergence from other wealthy Americans accelerated around the start of the pandemic.

🌍 Why it matters for corporate governance and sustainability: Wealth at this concentration is held predominantly in equities, which makes it ownership of the companies whose operating decisions determine emissions, and places a widening share of shareholder influence with a very small number of households

⏭️ What’s next: The key question is whether continued asset-price gains will further widen wealth differences or whether changes in markets and economic conditions will narrow them
• The Federal Reserve’s wealth distribution data will provide an ongoing measure of these shifts

📈 One stat: 15% — approximately the share of total US household wealth held by the top 0.1%.

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