The U.S. wealth gap has grown so wide, even America’s billionaires can’t help but notice.
In the third quarter of 2025, the top 1% of U.S. households owned a whopping 31.7% of U.S. wealth, according to Federal Reserve data released in January. It’s more or less as much as what the bottom 90% of Americans hold, the widest the gap has been since the Fed started collecting data in 1989. And although headline figures are relatively strong, the U.S. economy doesn’t feel like it’s working for everyone, according to one person who has been treated very well by it.
“This is 100% completely unsustainable as a society,” Peter Mallouk, the CEO of Creative Planning, a wealth management firm overseeing around $700 billion in assets, wrote on X Monday.
The gap has manifested in everything from asset ownership to how different households spend money, with real repercussions for the economy and even national politics. Mallouk even posted a graph from a December Financial Times article about the country’s widening wealth gap and growing evidence of a K-shaped economy, where households that own assets see their net worth rise while the majority of Americans are unable to build wealth.
The graph, based on a Moody’s analysis from September, showed that the wealthiest 10% of Americans account for almost half of all consumer spending, a departure from 20 years ago, when spending was more evenly distributed across income groups.
“Nearly 50% of all consumer spending now comes from the top 10% of earners,” Mallouk wrote. “The bottom 80%? Their share keeps falling.”
Mallouk’s post underscores the growing risk of America’s K-shaped reality. Wealth concentration at the top has accelerated since the pandemic, driven by booming stock markets and uneven wage growth favoring high earners.
Pay for high and middle-income earners rose 3% last year, compared to 1.5% for low-income households, according to a January report from Bank of America, a reversal from the early pandemic recovery days when low-income households posted much faster wage growth than wealthier peers. Today, most middle and lower-income households are struggling to build enough wealth to stay afloat, unable to muscle their way into homeownership and concerned about their ability to buy basic necessities.
Mallouk isn’t the only wealthy voice sounding the alarm. Last year, Ray Dalio, the billionaire Bridgewater Associates founder, said the widening wealth gap in the U.S. and other rich nations was causing populism to rise and risked creating “irreconcilable differences” in society that democratic order would not be equipped to handle. Some ultrawealthy, like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, have also pushed for higher corporate taxes to fund education and housing.
This growing inequality is in spite of a relatively positive state of the U.S. economy, at least according to topline numbers. In addition to a strong stock market, unemployment and GDP growth were both relative success stories last year by historical standards, although the economy might have entered a slowdown toward the end of 2025. Last month, Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi warned markets and the real economy had become “increasingly disconnected.”
“This is why the economy can look strong in the data while millions of people feel like they’re falling behind,” Mallouk wrote.
