2003-01-23 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- Economic inequality increased markedly as the boom of the 1990s fizzled, even as incomes increased at almost every level, according to a detailed new survey by the Federal Reserve.

Conducted at the end of 2001, when the economy was in a recession, the survey compared wealth and income with levels of 1998. It suggests that the benefits of the economic boom were widespread but extremely uneven.

The wealth of those in the top 10 percent of incomes surged much more than that of any other group. The net worth of families in the top 10 percent of income jumped 69 percent to $833,600 in 2001 from $492,400 in 1998. By contrast, the net worth of families in the lowest fifth of income earners rose by 24 percent to $7,900.

The median accumulated wealth for families at the top was about 12 times as great as that of lower-middle-income families throughout much of the 1990s. But in 2001, the median net worth of the top earners was about 22 times as great.

While income in the top 10 percent of households rose 19.3 percent from 1998 to 2001, income for the bottom fifth of all households climbed by 14.4 percent.

The survey is compiled every three years and is based on interviews with more than 4,000 families. Its results come as President Bush proposes a plan to cut taxes by $674 billion over 10 years. Opponents of the plan say most of the benefits would be showered on the nation's richest taxpayers.

Administration officials respond that a huge percentage of ordinary Americans now own stocks and will benefit from both tax-free dividends and any lift in the market itself.

The survey provides ammunition for each side. It shows that wealth became more concentrated, but it also confirms that more than half of all families own stocks either directly or through mutual funds and pension plans.

One controversial element of the survey will probably be the part that deals with household debt.

American consumers provided much of the backbone for economic growth, but economists have long been worried that consumers ran up too much debt in the process.

The Fed's report contends that household debt is much more benign than it looks. It noted that Americans did in fact borrow more in 2001 than in 1998, but said that their net worth rose even faster.

As a share of total family income, the Fed said, the aggregate debt burden of families actually declined from 14 percent through most of the 1990s to 12. 5 percent in 2001.

Even accounting for stock market declines after the survey was conducted, the Fed said, household wealth was still higher in 2001 than in 1998.

"Rising aggregate debt levels alone do not necessarily imply that conditions deteriorated at the level of individual families," the report said.

But at least some outside economists disputed that conclusion on several grounds.

They noted that the stock market dropped and unemployment climbed after the survey was finished in December 2001.

Mark Zandi, economist at Economy.com in West Chester, Pa., noted that the percentage of low-income households more than 60 days past due on a debt increased from 12.9 percent in 1998 to 13.4 percent in 2001.

Since the survey, Zandi said, an abundance of newer data has provided stronger evidence that lower-income households are under increasing stress: personal bankruptcies, automobile repossessions, mortgage foreclosures and other indicators of bad debt all hit records in 2002.