American capitalism is owned by more than billionaires. Households also hold stakes through homes, retirement accounts, public stocks and privately held businesses—but participation is not the same as equal ownership. Federal Reserve data show that business ownership and stockholding reach well beyond the very rich, while access and the value of those assets remain sharply uneven.
What does it mean for households to own part of the economy?
Ownership can take several forms. A family may own a home, hold shares in public companies directly or through a retirement account, or operate a privately held business. These assets differ: a home is both a place to live and a store of wealth; stocks are financial claims on companies; and a small business may be closely tied to its owner’s work and earnings.
These forms should not be collapsed into one measure. The share of families that own an asset tells us how widespread participation is, not how much of its total value they hold. Income is money received over time; net worth is the value of assets minus debts at a point in time. A family can participate in markets and still have little wealth or financial security.
How many families own businesses?
In the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), 20 percent of families owned a privately held business, the highest share in the survey’s modern record. The SCF’s classification includes a respondent or partner who owns a business or is self-employed, so the figure is broader than ownership of a large employer or incorporated company. It describes families in the 2022 survey, not individuals or a 2026 snapshot. See the Federal Reserve’s 2023 report on family finances from 2019 to 2022.
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Most business-owning families ran very small operations
Among families classified as business owners in the 2022 SCF, 52 percent had nonemployer firms—businesses with no employees—and 78 percent had businesses with fewer than five employees. In other words, the category includes many self-employed people and small operators, not just companies with staff, outside investors or a large payroll.
Business ownership and wealth are related, but the data do not show cause and effect
The report found mean nonbusiness net worth—excluding the value of the business—of about $570,000 for families without a business and about $1.1 million for families with nonemployer businesses. Those are descriptive averages, not evidence that starting a business caused a family’s wealth to rise. The report also notes that smaller business owners were less certain about their earnings, a reminder that ownership can bring income variability as well as an asset.
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Do ordinary families own stocks?
Yes, but stock ownership varies substantially by income. In 2022, 34 percent of families in the bottom half of the usual income distribution held stock, compared with 78 percent of families in the upper-middle group and 95 percent in the top decile, according to the Federal Reserve’s SCF report. These figures describe participation, not the dollar value held. A family with a small retirement-account balance and a wealthy family with extensive direct holdings both count as participants.
Retirement plans are another route into financial ownership
Just over two-thirds of working-age families participated in retirement plans in 2022. Participation was uneven across income groups, and the amount accumulated varied too. Retirement accounts can give households an indirect stake in financial assets, often through investments held inside a plan, but participation alone does not establish the size of a family’s portfolio or its ability to absorb financial shocks.
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What newer Federal Reserve estimates can—and cannot—tell us
The Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts (DFAs) publish quarterly estimates of household balance sheets by groups including wealth, income, age, education and race. They are not a new household survey conducted every quarter. The DFA combines aggregate Financial Accounts data with distribution patterns from the triennial SCF, then estimates values between or beyond survey years. Treat a quarterly DFA figure as a modeled distributional estimate, not a direct count of newly surveyed households. The Fed explains the method in its Distributional Financial Accounts overview.
How to read the ownership picture
- Participation is not equality: many families own some assets, while the amounts they hold can differ greatly.
- Asset type matters: a home, a public-stock portfolio and a small private business have different liquidity, risks and ties to household income.
- Business ownership is not automatically financial security: a small operation may depend on its owner’s labor and have uncertain earnings.
- Survey dates matter: the SCF statistics cited here refer to 2022, even though the report was published in 2023.
Where to find more recent household wealth data
The Census Bureau released its 2025 Survey of Income and Program Participation in July 2026, with wealth and asset-ownership tables and a brief examining household wealth in 2024. The release establishes that these materials are available; it does not, by itself, support a specific ownership percentage. See the Census Bureau’s 2025 SIPP release.
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