Decoupling Inequality and Stratification in the American Wealth Distribution, 1989–2022

Abstract

Wealth inequality in the United States has grown substantially in recent decades, yet it remains unclear whether wealth has become more stratified along socially salient, group-based lines. Insofar as intragroup solidarities and intergroup antagonisms depend on the extent to which groups are arranged into minimally overlapping, hierarchically ordered strata within the wealth distribution, stratification is sociologically important independently of inequality. Using Survey of Consumer Finances data from 1989 to 2022 and a nonparametric, rank-based stratification metric, we examine trends in wealth stratification across multiple axes of social difference, including racialized group membership, age, education, employment-based class, and marital status. We find that stratification declined along several dimensions, with education being the main exception. Decomposition analyses show that these dimensions differ not only by the level of stratification they exhibit over time but also by where in the distribution stratification is primarily generated and by the relative contributions of housing and nonhousing wealth. These findings underscore the importance of wealth composition and distributional location in shaping stratification and encourage scholars to explore how wealth accumulation may arden or weaken group boundaries.