The study found that the One Percent holds 35 percent of the nation's stocks. Despite talk of the "democratization of stocks" during the 1990s and 2000s, only 31 percent of Americans have stock holdings worth $10,000 or more.
The takeaway from these numbers seems to be clear: the rich are getting richer at the expense of (or at least despite) the rest of the population.
But there is another chart buried in the report that is equally interesting. It shows that the total share of wealth held by One Percenters is essentially flat since 2007, at 35 percent. Their share has fallen since 1989, when they held 37 percent of the nation’s wealth.
Of course, you won’t read many headlines that read “Rich Hold Lower Share of Nation’s Wealth.” (Read more: $6 Million Gets You into the One Percent at 40)
Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute and one of the paper’s authors, said that the difference between the numbers is a largely technical. He said that it depends on which time period you use as a starting point. And the ratio of One Percenters with the median wealth is more a reflection of the middle class losing wealth than the One Percent gaining wealth.
“The middle class has clearly been hammered, so that changes the denominator,” he said.