US household wealth climbed to a fresh record in the fourth quarter as Americans benefited from a historic market rally that followed President Donald Trump’s election.
Household net worth increased $164 billion, or 0.1% from the prior quarter, to $169 trillion, a Federal Reserve report showed Thursday. The value of Americans’ equity holdings rose nearly $264 billion. The overall gain was restrained by a decline in the value of real estate.
Shareholders largely benefited from a post-election surge in stock prices as investors piled into the so-called Trump trade, betting the Republican would enact pro-business policies during his second administration.
However, stocks have mostly reversed course in recent weeks — wiping out $5 trillion in gains — as Wall Street sours on the outlook amid concerns that the Trump administration’s tariffs are raising the odds of a recession. The recent hit to stock portfolios risks causing upper-income Americans, who have largely been responsible for robust consumer-spending growth, to cut back.
The Fed’s report showed that consumers boosted their borrowing at a 3.1% annualized pace, the fastest since the second quarter of 2023. Consumer non-mortgage credit accelerated to a 2.6% pace, while mortgage debt eased.
Business debt outstanding decelerated to about a 1% annualized rate, the slowest pace in a year. In the public sector, state and local government debt shrank by the most in two years.
Meanwhile, deposits held by households and nonprofit organizations, which includes savings and checking accounts and money market funds, rose by $578 billion — the most since 2021, to a record $19.4 trillion.