Top 47,000 Families Owned $1.196 Trillon in Private and Public Equity in 2004

According to a new IRS analysis of wealth holdings, the top 47,000 families in the U.S. (those with over $20 million in assets) owned $1.196 trillion in public and private corporate equity. That is 35.4% of all the equity in public and private companies held by households with over $1.5 million in assets. The IRS does not have data on how much everyone else owns, but, based on other wealth data, it is likely that the large majority of corporate assets is held by those families with over $1.5 million in assets. In 2004, all defined contribution plans had total assets of $3.38 trillion and covered about half of the workforce (most of the rest have no employer-provided retirement assets).