Did counts or average amounts explain the flat ordinary-dividend total?
Tax years 2022 and 2023
All-income-class ordinary dividends were nearly flat, up 0.062%, while returns reporting them rose 3.705%. The amount per reporting return therefore fell 3.512%.
Annual tax-return groups do not follow the same people. Qualified dividends are part of ordinary dividends; different AGI groups cannot establish an offset between categories. The cause is unresolved.
What the evidence supports
The aggregate ratio fell
Ordinary dividends rose from $8.953910 billion to $8.959487 billion; reporting returns rose from 413,260 to 428,570.
This explains the ratio arithmetically. It does not prove that new low-dividend recipients diluted an unchanged cohort.
All-bracket ordinary dividends are a different comparison from $200,000-plus qualified dividends.