Millionaires are Much More Common than I Thought

I just read SmartMoney's June issue with the main cover story being about people who are worth $5 million or more (the net worth I said I'd need to have to consider myself rich) -- what they're like, how they became wealthy, etc.) I'll be sharing my thoughts on the piece over the next few days, but before I got into it, I wanted to highlight this tidbit I found on the editor's page:

In the past 10 years, the number of U.S. households with net worth over a million dollars has nearly doubled; it works out to an astounding one in 12.

Wow. That's a huge percentage of people who count as millionaires. They don't say for sure but I'm guessing these numbers include home values in the calculations (which some people do not count in their net worth figures), but still, it's much larger than I would have guessed. And if one in 12 is a millionaire and net worths as a whole are so low, many, many, many people have very, very, very low net worths.

Finally, I have to reiterate that $1 Million isn't what it used to be (but it's still more than most people have.) ;-)

For more on millionaires, see these posts:

• How to Become a Millionaire

• Facts about Millionaires: Most Make a Bundle, Went to College, and Are Married

• Facts about Millionaires: Most Become Wealthy from Their Jobs

Comments

[Lord]

If they are retired or close to it, they had better be worth a million, or live in the boonies. This probably represents the majority of millionaires.

[Minimum Wage]

How many hamburger flippers become millionaires from their jobs?

[Skott]

An insightful post might instead ask a question, "I wonder how many millionaires at some point in their lives worked a minimum wage job?"

[Dy]

You could easily become a millionaire flipping hamburgers. I think you only have to invest $100 a month over 40 years. It's pretty surprising that there are tons of people with over 5 million networth. I guess it's not that shocking, but that the numbers of those people are increasing rapidly. My parents who are a tad over 50 have reached 5million+ networth (not including home) made it by owning their own business. I just can't wait until my networth will be in the positive territory in a couple of years.