The Indicator from Planet Money · Thursday, August 13, 2026
Economist Claudia Sahm believes that using letters like 'K' or 'C' to describe the economy is not very useful because they focus on wealth acquisition rather than the overall economic state. She highlights the persistent massive gap in wealth ownership, with the top 1% owning a third of the nation's wealth while the bottom 50% own less than 3%.
“I'm not big on the alphabet for the US economy.”
“And they kind of miss the point. Yeah, Claudia points to Federal Reserve data that show that the top 1% of Americans own one third of all the wealth in the country. But the bottom 50% of Americans own less than 3% of the wealth.”
“This is a massive gap that doesn't really change much from cycle to cycle.”