In the Fed’s latest Flow of Funds report released at noon today, the Fed released the latest snapshot of the US “household” sector as of June 30, 2018. What it revealed (alongside major historical revisions) is that with $122.7 trillion in assets and a modest $15.7 trillion in liabilities, the net worth of US households rose to an all-time high $106.9 trillion, increasing for 11 consecutive quarters and up $2.2 trillion as a result of an estimated $559 billion increase in real estate values, as well as a $1.7 trillion increase in various financial assets like corporate equities, mutual and pension funds, and deposits as the market soared to just shy of new all-time highs in the second quarter, even if it needed some time in Q3 to reach a new record.

Total household assets in Q2 rose $2.3 trillion to $122.7 trillion, while at the same time total liabilities, i.e., household borrowings, rose by only $132 billion from $15.6 trillion to $15.7 trillion, the bulk of which was $10.2 trillion in home mortgages. Homeowners’ real estate holdings minus the change in mortgage debt rose by $320.1 billion (a positive number means that the value of real estate is growing at a faster pace than household mortgage debt).

The breakdown of the total household balance sheet as of Q2 is shown below.

And the historical change of the US household balance sheet. Not that as part of the historical revisions, total net worth was revised roughly $3 trillion higher.

And while it would be great news if wealth across all of America had indeed risen as much as the chart above shows, the reality is that there is a big catch: as shown previously, virtually all of the net worth, and associated increase thereof, has only benefited a handful of the wealthiest Americans.

As the following chart from Deutsche Bank shows, the wealth inequality in the US is now as bad as it just during the Great Depression, with the top 0.1% of the US population owning as many assets as the bottom 90%.