Real economics: Wealth

Al Jazeera - More than 35 percent of Americans have debts and unpaid bills that have been reported to collection agencies, according to a study by the Urban Institute.

Washington Post - The median net worth of American households declined between 2000 and 2011, the Census Bureau said in a report that showed the steepest drops experienced by minorities and people under age 55.  The wealth drop in the bottom 60 percent was so great that it more than offset healthy increases in the net worth of the top 40 percent. As a result, median household net worth for the nation as a whole fell by more than $5,000 over a little more than a decade, a decline of almost 7 percent.

Center for Economic & Policy Research - A NYT article reported on a study from Russell Sage reporting that median household wealth 36 percent lower in 2013 than 2003. While this is disturbing, an even more striking finding from the study is that median wealth is down by around 20 percent from 1984.

The top 5% of Americans averaged 24 times as much wealth as the wealth of the median American family in 2013; in 2007 they averaged 17 times as much.

NY Times - The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. For households at the median level of net worth, much of the damage has occurred since the start of the last recession in 2007. Until then, net worth had been rising for the typical household, although at a slower pace than for households in higher wealth brackets.