Building a Nation of Investors

Abstract In recent years (particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic) many American households have seen their home values and stock portfolios increase at rates far outpacing wage gains. This chapter places this recent divergence between asset and wage growth into longer historical perspective. It argues that the rise of asset building was facilitated both by changes in policy, and by shifts in normative ideas about how citizens should link to the American political economy. These shifts accompanied the reorientation of the American political economy from the New Deal to a neoliberal order. The chapter describes how policymakers of both parties as well industry and some civil society actors came to embrace asset building as a non-labor path into the wealth stream and enabler of great social inclusion, as previous pathways became increasingly unavailable. It concludes by discussing the unintended consequences and unfulfilled promises of the 21st-century turn toward asset building.