Michael Barone, writing in the Wall Street Journal today, claims the following (subscription required):

Most Americans accumulate significant, six-figure wealth in the course of their lifetimes. During the late 1990s stock market boom, most household wealth was in financial instruments, but today and before the late 1990s the majority of household wealth was in residential real estate. And in politics the key economic issue for voters may be changing, from concern about short-term income to concern about the long-term, lifelong project of accumulating wealth.

Barone’s first claim is accurate — Census data shows that most Americans over age 65 have a median household net worth of more than $100,000 (though far fewer younger Americans do so). However, the same Census data shows that his claim that “most household wealth was in financial instruments” during the late 1990s is false. At the aggregate level, 53 percent of overall household wealth was invested in non-financial instruments in 1998, a figure that declined only slightly — to 51 percent — by 2000. Similarly, when we look at the disaggregated data, we can see that the middle quintile of households by monthly income had, on average, 53.4 percent of their net worth in real estate, motor vehicles and/or a business in 1998 and 50.7 percent in 2000. (Those in the lower two quintiles had even less invested in financial instruments.)

In short, the claim that “most household wealth was in financial instruments” during the late 1990s boom isn’t even close to correct. Did Barone even look at the data, or did he just make these claims up off the top of his head?