Two in five Americans believe the stock market isn’t for them and only benefits the top 1%, according to a new Harris Poll poll exclusive to the Guardian that surveyed investing habits and knowledge about the economy.
The poll found a similar share of Americans had incorrect assumptions about the relationship between the economy and the stock market
Nearly 40% did not know that the economy and the stock market were not the same thing. And two-thirds of Americans incorrectly believed that a growing stock market means the overall economy is growing. Though the economy has been rattled by events such as the Covid pandemic, high inflation and the war in Iran, the stock market has continued to be resilient.
But some economists have described this phenomenon as a K-shaped economy, where the cleft between higher-income Americans, whose wealth has ballooned with the stock market, and workers who find their wages hold less power against rising prices continues to grow in opposite directions. The Dow Jones is up 9% for the year and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is up 12.5% this year. After a large recovery from brief dips during the early weeks of the war in Iran, the AI rally specifically appears to be the rising tide lifting all boats.