www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic
1 correction found
The top 20% account for roughly 65%.
Available Federal Reserve analyses put the top 20% share of U.S. consumer spending closer to the high-50s, not 65%.
Full reasoning
This sentence overstates how much of U.S. consumer spending is attributable to the top 20% of earners.
Two Federal Reserve Bank analyses give materially lower estimates:
- The Dallas Fed estimated that the top 20% of earners were responsible for 57% of overall consumption on average from 2020 to the second quarter of 2025. It also says the top-20 share of total consumption rose from 53% to 57% over the last three decades.
- The Minneapolis Fed, summarizing both Dallas Fed and Moody's-based estimates, states that the Dallas Fed found the top 20% comprised an average of 57% of consumer spending between 2020 and 2025, and that Moody's put the top quintile at 59% in Q3 2025.
Those figures are well below 65%. Because the article presents this as a concrete present-tense statistic about the U.S. economy, the number should not be inflated by 6–8 percentage points without a source using a comparable definition.
2 sources
- Consumption concentration may be up, adding slightly to economic fragility - Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
We find that quintile is responsible for 57 percent of overall consumption on average from 2020 to the second quarter of 2025... the top 20 percent of earners' share of total consumption moving from 53 percent to 57 percent.
- Have U.S. consumers gone "K-shaped"? A review of the data - Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
The authors found the top 20 percent of households comprised an average of 57 percent of consumer spending between 2020 and 2025 (similar to Moody's calculation of a 59 percent share for this top quintile in third quarter 2025).