Affluence in the United States
Affluence refers to an individual's or household's economical and financial advantage in comparison to others. It may be assessed through either income or wealth. In absolute terms affluence is a relatively widespread phenomenon in the United States, with over 30% of households having an income exceeding 250,000, as of 2019. However, when looked at in relative terms, wealth is highly concentrated: the bottom 50% of Americans only share 2% of total household wealth while the top 1% hold 35% of that wealth. In the United States, as of 2019, the median household income is 97,300, while the mean household income is 692,100. Household income in the United States While income is often seen as a type of wealth in colloquial language use, wealth and income are two substantially different measures of economic prosperity. Wealth is the total value of net possessions of an individual or household, while income is the total inflow of monetary assets over a given time period. Hence the change in wealth over that time period is equal to the income minus the expenditures in that period. Income is a so-called "flow" variable, while wealth is a so-called "stock" variable. Affluence in the United States has been attributed in many cases to inherited wealth amounting to "a substantial head start": in September 2012, the Institute for Policy Studies found that over 60 percent of the Forbes richest 400 Americans had grown up with substantial privilege. Income is commonly used to measure affluence, although this is a relative indicator: a middle class person with a personal income of $77,500 annually and a billionaire may both be referred to as affluent, depending on reference groups.
