Economic growth and a rising stock market in the 1990s gave the impression that everyone was accumulating wealth and asset poverty rates were declining. The impression was supported by the official, income-based poverty measure, which exhibited a sharp decline. According to Senior Scholar Edward...

Using PSID data for the years 1984-99, we estimate the level and severity of asset poverty. We find that despite a sharp decline in the official poverty rate, the asset poverty rate barely budged over this period. Moreover, the severity of asset poverty increased during this period. The...