[niels_olson]

> some additional downward pressure, although I am not sure what that could be

I'm not an economist, so these are speculative, but seem reasonable based on the fact that we're talking about loss of wealth from households below median:

Loss of life (specifically heads of household) due to the wars (I'm guessing most military households, being young and having maximum education of high school to "some college" will be below median)

Increased energy costs (gas being a marginal cost would hit people with less marginal income harder).

Loss of jobs to automation (I'm thinking secretaries, anything that can be replaced by an iphone, etc)

Declining birth rate (last I heard total high school graduations were supposed to peawould tend to lead to oversaturated teaching jobs, also relatively low-paying.

Chrysler was in distress long before the recession.

[alexeisadeski3]

Those describe downward pressure on income, not wealth necessarily:

None of these would lead to a decrease in wealth so quickly, except for situations in which the wealth had to be consumed to make up for loss of job / disability / sickness / overconsumption.

Re: Military families: Most people getting killed/dismembered were too young to have any wealth to lose. Even still, their wealth would actually increase upon death as the military's life insurance policies are quite generous.