The Plan For Every American To Own Stocks Is Very Good

To investors,

The Federal Reserve cracked the market in 1971 when we went off the gold standard and America’s central bank finished the job by breaking the market in 2008-2009 with the undisciplined use of quantitative easing. Prolonged bear markets have been outlawed and anyone saving in dollars is punished annually with 5% or more debasement of their economic value.

Not exactly a rosy picture for millions of Americans.

But this trend of debasement has slowly convinced more citizens to allocate their hard earned money to public equities as a percentage of their portfolio. Mike Zaccardi highlights recent JPMorgan data that shows US household stock ownership as a percentage of total assets is now at an all-time high.

As we close in on 30% in that metric, it is important to remember only 62% of Americans own stocks, according to Perplexity. This includes ownership of individual stocks as well as stocks held indirectly through mutual funds, 401(k) plans, IRAs, and other retirement accounts. Here is a breakdown of who owns those stocks:

By Income:

• 87% of adults in households earning $100,000 or more own stocks.
• Only 28% of those in households earning less than $50,000 own stocks.
• Among those with less than $30,000 in annual income, ownership drops to 25%.

By Education:

• 84% of college graduates own stocks.
• 42% of those with a high school education or less own stocks.

By Race/Ethnicity:

• 70% of White adults own stocks.
• 53% of Black adults own stocks.
• 38% of Hispanic adults own stocks.

By Marital Status:

• 77% of married adults own stocks, compared to 49% of unmarried adults.

Now we know that stock ownership, and broadly asset ownership, is a major driver of wealth in this country. But more than 30% of Americans don’t have any stocks in their portfolio, so we are seeing a big push from the private sector to improve the situation and ensure more Americans have exposure to the US economy through the stock market.

The initiative is called Invest America and the idea is to have every newborn receive $1,000 in a special account that gives them exposure to the US stock market. The concept calls for the child to hold that money until they are at least 18 years old, which would let compounding work in their favor and deliver economic value to a young adult thanks to the US government setting them up in a good position at birth.

Here is Invest America founder Brad Gerstner talking about the program at the White House yesterday:

The idea of Invest America is very popular for obvious reasons. Comedian Andrew Schulz shared yesterday “I didn’t buy a stock until I was 35 bc I was financially illiterate (still am) and it seemed too risky. Let’s get as many Americans as we can invested in the success of American industry EARLY.”

Here is Andrew talking about Invest America a few months ago:

I would love to see Invest America become the law of the land. Give every newborn child $1,000 exposure to capitalism and lets ensure we have the system working for our people, rather than against them. The Federal Reserve and politicians are never going to stop printing money, so lets not operate in some charade.

Get the kids exposure to the 500 best American companies. They will be very thankful a few decades from now.

Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow

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