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Because there are many ways to "own" stock, this question can have many answers. For example, if you own a mutual fund in your company's retirement plan, you can be said to be the "owner" of the stocks that are in the mutual fund. That's in spite of the fact that you probably don't know what they are, and you have no voting control in either the stocks themselves or the mutual fund. The most commonly offered answer to this question uses this broad, and, arguably meaningless definition. The Mutual Fund Industry group - Investment Company Institute - has a lot of data on this subject. Its 2002 study, http://www.ici.org/pdf/rpt_02_equity_owners.pdf showed that 49.5% (or 52.7 million) of US Households owned equities in some way shape or form in 2002. However, only 21 million (less than 20%) owned individual stocks outside an employee sponsored plan. There is an important distinction here. When politicians talk about eliminating the capital gains tax, it is only these 21 million households who will pay lower taxes, because retirement investments are tax deferred while you hold them, and then taxed at regular income tax rates when you take the money out. I haven't found a more up to date study, but than number was actually a little bit lower than it was in 1999 (peak of the internet boom) so I doubt it's changed much. There are also figures given for those who own equity mutual funds outside of an employee sponsored plan - 28.7 million households - as well as 35.9 million households who represent those who own either individual stocks or mutual funds or both. I'm not comfortable with either of those, as subsequent ICI studies suggest that the majority of the Mutual Fund investing households are holding their funds in IRAs or other tax deferred plans - so they, too, pay regular income tax, at the time of withdrawal, on capital gains and dividends.

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15y ago
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Q: What percentage of Americans own stock?
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