Great Graphic: Unemployment Threatens US Equity Culture

This Great Graphic comes from Gallup. It surveyed American households and found that the lower percentage of adults own shares since the survey began in the late 1990s.  

A little more than half of adults own shares directly, or in a mutual fund, or a 401k account, individually or jointly. 

Gallup's survey found that a majority of people at least 30-years old with annual household income above $30k own shares, while no more than a third of the younger and lower income earning adults own equities.  

The inference is that the key determinant to owning shares is not whether the direction of the stock market, but the means to invest, which is income, which is a job.  The peak in equity ownership corresponds to a peak in the economy.  While the U3 measure of unemployment has indeed fallen, broader measures, which may be more telling for this exercise, are proving considerably stickier and real income is barely keeping pace with headline CPI.