Americans across the nation continue to watch their bank accounts shrink, their 401k retirement plans disappear and the value of their dollar plummet. The latest news of grave financial hardship coming as experts say losses from financial markets could total $9.5 trillion to $10 trillion.
According to data from the Federal Reserve, holdings of corporate equities and mutual fund shares fell to $33 trillion at the end of the second quarter, down from $42 trillion at the start of the year. Experts say that the decline will hurt spending and put more strain on the American economy.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said the losses could reduce real GDP growth by nearly 0.2 percentage points over the coming year.
It’s not just the wealthy that are losing money in stocks, in fact, the bottom 50% of earners have lost about $70 billion in stock wealth as compared to a 22% decline for the top 10% of Americans equaling more than $8 trillion in stock market losses.
With those at the top bearing most of the losses, wealth inequality has experienced a slight decline as the share of wealth held by the top 10% slipped from 69% to 68%.
