The Federal Reserve publishes data on the distribution of wealth between the
top 0.1%, 0.1-1%, 1-10%, 10-50%, and bottom 50% of Americans.

Press play to see the way wealth has grown & changed since 1989:

Until 2003 or so, the 1-10% and the 10-50% hold a similar percentage of the nation's wealth. In 2003:Q1 both hold 15.8T, 21 years later the 1-10% have grown their wealth to 55.4T, but the next 40% saw 9T less growth.

We can also see this on a chart of assets over time:

This is more visible in percentage terms, in 2003 the two groups held a 36.2% and 36.0% share, respectively. In 2024, there is a 6% gulf between them, but it is not the 1-10% that gained the most, the .1% went from 9% in 2003 to over 13%. The remainder of the 1% experienced a small increase of 2% that was mostly wiped out by 2023.
Looking all the way back to 1989, we see this trend:

• 8.6% to 13.6%
• 14% to 16%
• 38% to 36%
• 35% to 30%
• 3.5% to 2.5%

But the gulf has in fact gotten even wider. Since 1989, the US population has grown from 244 million people to 341 million people.
So in 1989, the top 0.1% of the population, ~244,000 people held 1.81 trillion in wealth.
In 2024, the top 0.1% of the population, ~341,000 people held 20.9 trillion in wealth.
Similarly, in 1989, the bottom 50%, 122 million people, shared 0.7T.
In 2024, the bottom 50%, 170 million people, shared 3.8 trillion.

Let's look at the same data, per capita: