The economic crisis “ended only for the top 7 percent of households that have substantial holdings of stocks and bonds,” former Reagan Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts writes. “The other 93% of the American population is still in recession.”

The numbers come from a Pew report that attributes the recovery for the rich to the increase in the price of stocks and bonds. The health of those markets does not “reflect rising consumer purchasing power and retail sales,” however. The labor force is shrinking, in fact, and the few positions that are being created are “primarily dead-end jobs in lowly paid domestic services. Retail sales adjusted for inflation and real median household income have been bottom bouncing since 2009,” Roberts writes.

Still, something is supporting the recovery of the stock and bond markets, a comeback that has given wealthy households a 28 percent gain in their net worth since 2009, while everyone else lost 4 percent. What is it?

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.