So Whose Wealth Is At a Record High?

This news story must be good news for some folks:

According to the Federal Reserve, household wealth amounted to $66.1 trillion at the end of 2012 and further gains in stock and house prices have allowed Americans to make up for the losses incurred during the recession.

If you want to protest that not everyone has recovered their lost wealth, the story sort of concedes this further down:

The recovered wealth — most of it from higher stock prices — has been flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.

Households owners' equity in real estate peaked at $12.5 billion in 2005 and then plummeted. While it has partially recovered, it was only $8.2 billion at the end of 2012 according to the Flow of Funds Accounts. Given that consumer prices have risen by almost 20 percent over this period, our equity in real estate is still far below its 2005 peak value.