Perhaps there's some truth to what the Occupy Wall Street protesters are saying. A new study suggests that even fewer American households have reached the point where they have at least $100,000 in investable assets, a wealth benchmark that's a good sign of retirement preparation.
The good news is that retirement assets have rebounded sharply after massive post-meltdown losses.
Hearts and Wallets, a research partnership between Baby Boomer retirement trends experts Chris Brown and Laura Varas, has released its new "Portrait of U.S. Household Wealth" study, which suggests the road to financial security has been increasingly rocky for many American families.
Of the 120 million households in the U.S., the study—culled from Federal Reserve and U.S. Census data—finds that approximately 90 million have not reached the $100,000 milestone, up from 82 million before the beginning of 2008's market problems.
"The 2008 downturn hit households very unevenly, and that may prove true again with continued market turbulence," said Varas, who works with Mast Hill Consulting. "In intuitive terms, about one in eight of the households now in the $100,000 to $250,000 segment also moved down from a higher investment segment."
The analysis also finds that total American household investable assets were approximately $30.2 trillion at the end of last year, including retirement assets of $10.7 trillion and taxable assets of $19.5 trillion.
