Even if you don’t own or trade individual stocks, there’s a decent chance you have a 401(k) account or an Individual Retirement Account or belong to a pension fund that is invested in stocks.
"Many individuals have an indirect interest in the stock market by means of their claims on pension funds that own stocks and use these stock positions to fund pension payments," said Hendrik Bessembinder, a professor at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business.
A once-every-three-years
study by the Federal Reserve Board found that in 2016, 51.9 percent of families owned stocks, either directly or as part of a fund.
And in 2017,
Gallup found that 54 percent of respondents owned stocks either directly or as part of a fund.
Those findings show a majority owning stocks — a modest majority, but still a majority.
In an email interview, Khanna told PolitiFact that he still feels the "essence of the post" is accurate but added that "a better headline would have been, "Most Americans Don’t Have a Real Stake in the Stock Market."
Khanna has a point that a household’s affluence does help determine how vested they are in the stock market.
The Federal Reserve Board study found that about one-third of families in the lower half of the income scale had stock holdings. In the next 40 percent of the income scale, about 70 percent of households held stocks, while households in the top 10 percent of the income scale had stock ownership rates above 90 percent.
Here's a chart from the Fed's report, showing how stock ownership rates vary depending on income level.
Gallup, meanwhile, found that certain subgroups were notably less likely to own stocks, including those without a college education, younger Americans, unmarried Americans, African-Americans, and Hispanics.
Our ruling
Khanna wrote that "most Americans don’t own stocks."
To be precise, a narrow majority of Americans does own stocks, according to credible recent studies. But Khanna has a point that Americans of modest incomes are significantly less invested in the stock market than wealthier Americans are. Other large groups, including minorities and those without a college education, also lag in stock ownership, meaning that the stock rally is largely passing them by.
We rate the statement Half True.
Share The Facts
Ro Khanna
U.S. Representative, D-Calif.
"Most Americans don’t own stocks."
a Facebook post – Wednesday, September 12, 2018
