A Century of Wealth in America

Wolff’s magnum opus is a highly timely book, for it contains a trove of interesting material that is highly germane to a political moment when the issue of wealth inequality is on everyone’s lips…His evidence suggests that the United States now has the greatest wealth inequality among developed economies and that the recovery from the recession of 2008 is manifesting itself, in part, in a renewed growth in the wealth of the richest. – Gregory Clark * Wall Street Journal *What this book really delivers, and why it is important, is a damning indictment of just where late-stage capitalism has gone wrong, and how the soar-away wealth of the 1 per cent (or the 0.1 per cent) is so corrosive of the political and social consensus in contemporary America. – Andrew Hilton * Financial World *A remarkably easy and valuable read…The great achievement of Wolff…is to assemble reams of data, and let his numbers speak for themselves—and they speak very loudly and clearly indeed. Anyone trying to understand the rise of Donald Trump would be well advised to study Wolff closely. Many of the underlying causes of the frustrations that led to last November’s shock vote can be found in these numbers. – Duncan Weldon * Prospect *Wolff delineates the clear connection between rising income inequality and a rising profit share for corporations and privileged individuals…Wolff’s opus is deeply disturbing for the country. Accumulating wealth or even economic stability is no easier today than 50 or 60 years ago when I entered the workforce. Trump’s tax act couldn’t even eliminate the carried interest for hedge fund general partners. – Martin Sosnoff * Forbes *For half a century, [Wolff] has studied American inequality, producing some of the field’s most important works… Anyone interested in the changing distribution of income and wealth, and everyone should be, must read this book. – Gerald Friedman * Industrial and Labor Relations Review *Edward Wolff is probably the most knowledgeable scholar of the empirics of household wealth in the U.S. The book is comprehensive and engaging. The historical perspective is particularly illuminating. – Philippe Van Kerm, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research and University of LuxembourgWolff is the leading expert on wealth in the United States, and has been for many years. Here he has drawn on his wide knowledge and experience to provide a fascinating portrait of how personal wealth has evolved in the U.S. over the past century. – James Davies, University of Western Ontario

Edward N. Wolff is Professor of Economics at New York University.