Bloomberg Surveillance · Friday, July 31, 2026
Despite overall wealth increase, Americans report feeling angrier, with a widening gap between the wealthy and others. Factors contributing to this sentiment include rising costs for essential services and a perception of economic unfairness. Even lower-income individuals are better off by most metrics than they used to be.
“Well, everyone is getting richer. The top one percent has gotten way way richer. Even if you look at the intercome distribution. It's true the middle class is smaller, but because more people have entered the upper middle class. But even lower income people are by most metrics bet are often they used to be. But it's sort of extraordinary because all we hear is people feel like the economy is not working for them.”
“So, you know, there's a lot of reasons why that could be. It could be some like necessary services are still expensive, could be relative gains or what matters.”