America is doing better than you think. Your algorithm is just hiding it.

By Robert Ross

The bottom half of Americans has more than doubled its net worth since 2019. You wouldn't know it from scrolling social media.

Social-media rage bait is distorting how we view the economy.

Someone once told me that an opinion capable of enraging both sides of the political divide is probably worth saying.

So here goes.

Ordinary Americans are doing a lot better than you think. And whoever occupies the White House deserves far less credit or blame for it than we like to believe.

At the end of 2019, the bottom 50% of American households collectively owned about $1.86 trillion in net worth, according to Fed data. By the second quarter of 2026, that figure had climbed to $4.28 trillion.

That's a 129% increase. Inflation obviously ate into some of those gains. But even adjusting for CPI, the increase is still roughly 78% in real terms. And if you go back to 2010, net worth for the bottom 50% has increased tenfold. That is real progress for the least fortunate Americans.

And there are plenty of other signs of progress.

Economic gloom is outrunning the facts

The Federal Reserve's latest Survey of Consumer Finances found inflation-adjusted median family net worth reached $215,900. Meanwhile, 55% of American adults say they have enough emergency savings to cover three months of expenses, according to Fed data. Those two points alone poke a major hole in the popular "Americans are living paycheck to paycheck" narrative.

And it's not just older generations who are thriving. Federal Reserve research comparing generations at the same ages found that each of the past four generations enjoyed higher inflation-adjusted household incomes than the generation before it. Millennials in their late 30s, for example, earn more than Gen X households did at comparable ages.

Now, younger Americans do have legitimate gripes.

Housing affordability remains awful. Baby boomers faced much higher mortgage rates, but homes generally cost around three times household income. Today they cost nearly five times the income, while buyers are still dealing with elevated mortgage rates.

Housing is a real problem worth fixing. But progress and problems can exist at the same time.

That said, if you ask the average person on the street how the country is doing, you'd probably get a much darker assessment of America.

There's a reason for that.

Politics is warping how we see the economy

University of Michigan researchers have documented an enormous partisan divide in perceptions of the economy.

When political control changes, supporters of the incoming party suddenly become more optimistic while the other side becomes gloomier. We saw it after the 2016 election. Then the reverse after 2020. And again, following the 2024 election.

It seems the only thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on is that the $30 trillion U.S. economy turns on a dime when their political party takes power.

We'll likely see this again after the November midterms. Prediction markets heavily favor Democrats retaking the House, and give them a meaningful chance of winning the Senate.

If that comes to pass and political control changes, millions of Americans will likely wake up the following morning convinced the economic outlook suddenly improved or deteriorated based largely on which party they support.

But if those people are constantly on their phones, it's not completely their fault.

Your algorithm wants you angry

A 2026 study published in Nature found that engagement-driven social-media algorithms amplified political content, moral outrage and toxic material while increasing users' perceptions of hostility between political groups.

I've seen those incentives firsthand. Since 2020, my investing content has generated more than 150 million views across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Outrage, fear and conflict routinely outperform nuance.

"The bottom half of Americans has gotten substantially wealthier" is terrible engagement bait.

"America is collapsing and your political opponents caused it" works considerably better.

Algorithms learn what makes us angry, afraid or vindicated, then serve us more of it. They feed into our biases because keeping us engaged means more time on their apps and more opportunities to serve us ads.

And this isn't merely a Gen Z problem. It's well documented that younger Americans spend enormous amounts of time on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. But older Americans are hardly offline. Nearly half of Americans over 65 use Facebook daily, and social-media users in that age group spend roughly an hour and 40 minutes per day across platforms like Facebook, Instagram and others.

That gives these platforms plenty of opportunity to shape how they see the world.

Eventually, our personalized feeds start feeling like objective reality.

But the truth is typically somewhere in between.

Zoom out

America has serious problems. Some Americans are genuinely struggling, and we should keep trying to improve the areas where the country is falling short.

But occasionally, look up from your feed.

The bottom half is wealthier. Median family wealth is higher. Younger generations are earning more than previous generations did at comparable ages. Most Americans who want a job have one.

The country may be doing considerably better than your algorithm wants you to believe. And that won't change much depending on which political party is in power.

That's how I approach investing. Elections will create winners and losers in individual industries, but I'd rather own businesses capable of prospering across political cycles than build a portfolio around predicting Washington.

In my next free "Let's Analyze" newsletter, I'm going to break down one investment that I think can benefit regardless of how November's election breaks. If you want the idea in your inbox when it goes live, you can sign up here.

Because underneath that investment is a much bigger bet: America will keep growing.

Warren Buffett has spent decades making essentially the same wager, stating numerous times that betting against America is a losing proposition.

I don't think this time is different.

Even if my algorithm tells me otherwise.

Robert Ross is the founder of TikStocks and author of "A Beginner's Guide to High-Risk, High-Reward Investing." A former chief equity analyst at Mauldin Economics, Ross writes the investment newsletter Let's Analyze on Substack and hosts the weekly "Room to Run" podcast.

-Robert Ross

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-01-26 0801ET