There were seven people who participated in the Fed’s authoritative survey of consumer finances that were so wealthy and prominent that the central bank excluded them from the public database of responses so that they could not be identified.
That’s actually remarkable given the Fed goes out of its way not to find such respondents to the 28-page survey conducted on information ranging from payment methods to vehicle ownership to charity to pensions. Findings from the survey include the median, and average, value of net worth for U.S. households.But to understand how the Fed tries not to find the super-duper-wealthy, you have to first understand why it makes an extra effort to look at the finances of wealthy people.
So in addition to a national random survey, the Fed also went after this hard-to-reach segment with an assist from the Internal Revenue Service, which gives it special access to tax records. In fact, it’s a delicate, three-way partnership between the Fed, the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center that carries out the polling, and the Internal Revenue Service; the IRS doesn’t receive the survey responses, for instance, while the Fed doesn’t get the contact details.
That suggests for instance that these are newly minted billionaires; that Forbes has missed a few people; or, probably less likely, that the sample of the “normal” people somehow stumbled on seven of these mega-rich.
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Source: MarketWatch - 🏆 3. / 97 Read more »
Source: MarketWatch - 🏆 3. / 97 Read more »