Agreed. In addition to pension plans (most government employees), all 401K plans invest into stocks/indices. That's a huge chunk of regular middle class people throwing money into the market. Just because some people don't actively day trade, it doesn't mean that they're not affected by stock market.

Also, increasing stock prices are usually a key component of corporate finance, which will yield job growth, or promotion, or investment inside the firm, which are all good for employees. Even if much of the wealth generated directly by stock increases happens for the owners of the company, it enables the company to operate.

And what percentage of the poorest 50% of Americans have even $5,000 in any kind of retirement savings?

"More than one in five (22%) Americans have less than $5,000 saved for retirement, and 15% have no retirement savings at all. That’s an improvement from 2018 when 31% had less than $5,000 saved and 21% had no retirement savings at all."

Source: https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-20...

With platforms like robinhood, and the trend toward lowering the bar to investment, even people like me ( <3% of income is "disposable" (which in and of itself probably isnt true as I have student debt)) can start doing SOME investment. Ive been poor my whole life, and have made a point since my teens to keep savings. Only recently did I begin investing however. This is a result of benig surrounded by people who don't make enough money to buy the things they do. Everyone has a choice of how to spend there money. To pretend the 12 bucks you spent on PBR and cigs is a better way to spend the money than to put it towards savings is the crux of the problem according to my personal experience.

> To pretend the 12 bucks you spent on PBR and cigs is a better way to spend the money than to put it towards savings is the crux of the problem according to my personal experience.

Expensive habits are terrible for your personal finances. I like to look at habits like that in a weekly, monthly, and yearly cost. Seeing that a $40/week habit is $2,080/year really helps me put my spending choices in perspective.

I'm curious by how you define being 'poor' since you say you had savings as a teen.

When I was a teen, being poor meant that even if you put that $12 away for another day, it'll just be used the next day to fill your tank. It's not really saving money if you're just putting off buying gas for your car.

My concern with something like robinhood is that many people treat investing like gambling without realizing it until there is a down turn and the money they saved for years is wiped out.

And what percentage of those people are not bottom 50% by the time they retire? Wealth is not a lifetime static number.

It's easy to google median wealth by age and see how people add wealth over a lifetime.

Nice goalpost shift. The original poster claimed that only 10% benefited. How did it change to 50%?

Well 52 - 60 percent of Americans own stocks so more (probably a good amount more) than 2 - 10 percent of the bottom fifty percent must own stocks, directly or indirectly

As of 2016, according to NASRA, pension funds on average had 48% of their holdings in stocks.

And the pension market is ~140% of GDP. So that's a lot of cash in stocks. Too much if you ask me, but I'm just an engineer.