Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham warned on Thursday that Americans need an 11% increase in net worth just to maintain purchasing power following the dollar’s significant decline since President Donald Trump‘s inauguration.
Dollar Index Shows Sharp Decline From Inauguration
The U.S. Dollar Index has fallen from 109.29 on Trump’s January 20 inauguration to 98.07 as of Thursday—a 10.26% decrease.
Graham wrote on X: “Unless your dollar-denominated net worth has increased by at least 11% this year, you’ve become poorer. The dollar has decreased about 10% in value since Trump took office.”
Dollar-focused ETFs reflect this decline. Invesco DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund UUP dropped 6.61% from $29.34 to $27.40, while WisdomTree Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Bullish Fund USDU fell 4.86% from $27.57 to $26.23 since the inauguration.
Billionaire Wealth Gains Offset Currency Devaluation
Despite dollar weakness, tech billionaires have posted substantial gains. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Larry Ellison leads with over $115 billion year-to-date, while Mark Zuckerberg gained $63.5 billion. Elon Musk, despite losing $68.1 billion, maintains the top position at $364 billion in net worth.
Graham noted sarcastically that Trump could claim creating “unprecedented billionaires” when measuring in “Trump dollars, which are only worth .9 [Former President Joe] Biden dollars.”
Experts Warn of Structural Dollar Pressures
Ray Dalio previously warned that currency devaluation cycles historically lead to gold-backed systems when trust in fiat currencies erodes. The billionaire investor cited patterns where governments print money to service debt, eventually triggering confidence crises.
Fidelity’s Jurrien Timmer warned the dollar could lose its “supremacy premium” if the Federal Reserve intervenes in bond markets to suppress rates amid rising debt burdens.
Corporate Impact and Forward Outlook
McDonald’s Corp. MCD CEO Chris Kemczynski attributed consumer anxiety partly to tariff impacts, noting “real incomes are down with the low-income consumer” and visits declining “double digits versus the prior year.”
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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