How many Americans are now actually millionaires?
There are more millionaires than ever in the United States.
As of the end of 2016, there were a record 10.8 million millionaires nationwide, according to a new study from Spectrem Group's Market Insights Report 2017. That's more than ever before and marks a 400,000 person increase from the previous year.
The increase is thanks to a recovery of the U.S. economy since the Great Recession in 2008 and the Wall Street rally that followed the election of Donald Trump, according to George Walper, Jr., President of Spectrem Group.
"The record levels of households reflect the significantly higher values of all asset classes, post-recession," he says in a press release accompanying the release of the report. "And the recent record level of the United States markets following the presidential election has added demonstrably to the asset level of most affluent investors.''
There are more millionaires than ever in the United States.
As of the end of 2016, there were a record 10.8 million millionaires nationwide, according to a new study from Spectrem Group's Market Insights Report 2017. That's more than ever before and marks a 400,000 person increase from the previous year.
The increase is thanks to a recovery of the U.S. economy since the Great Recession in 2008 and the Wall Street rally that followed the election of Donald Trump, according to George Walper, Jr., President of Spectrem Group.
"The record levels of households reflect the significantly higher values of all asset classes, post-recession," he says in a press release accompanying the release of the report. "And the recent record level of the United States markets following the presidential election has added demonstrably to the asset level of most affluent investors.''
At the same time that there is a record number of millionaires in the U.S., the middle class is shrinking.
The percent of American adults who are considered middle-income fell from 55 percent in 2000 to 52 percent in 2014, according to a 2016 report from the Pew Research Center.
And increasing numbers of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck . One in three say they couldn't come up with $2,000 if faced with an emergency like an urgent home repair, medical crisis or car accident. Meanwhile, even affluent two-income households report feeling pinched.
That 400,000 number for 2017 even with the market's rise was lower than the average yearly increase for the years between 2008 (total = 6.1 million) and 2016 (10.4 million) which would be 480,000. It would be interesting to know how many millionaires who just barely made the cut at the end of 2017 are not back under a million after the big market sell offs of the past few weeks.
"Not" in the last sentence should be "now."
I'm doin' fine thanks. I'm betting you don't have any mirrors in your house.
Actually long term the recent sell off made hardly a dent (unless someome wasn't in the market-- and then put a large sum into it-- a day orm so before the sell-off!).
I was surprised how little my total stock holdings went down due to the sell-off. In fact, my entire stock holdings went down only somewhere between 2%-3% from that sell off. I've become a fairly wise trader after some big mistakes-- so I am well hedged (that means diversification-- for example, I have deliberately bought some stocks that tend to go up with rising interest rate-- and other that go down in that situation.
I also have some that go down with rising inflation-- and others that go up with rising inflation.
And while a decline in the market for a few days in a row may seem scary, remember that you don't actually loss (or gain) even a cent until you sell something. (The only selling I did within the last few months was minor-- mainly I sold a little bit in each of 2 stocks where I had big gains. And that didn't have anything to do with the sell off-- whenever a given stock has had a big run-up in a short time I tend to sell off a little-- perhaps as much as 10% of my holdings-- sometimes as much as 25%.
We're doing fine also. Certainly not millionaires, but comfortable. We can pay all of our monthly bills with our income and some left over for some dinners out or (if we save it) a 5 or 7 day cruise to Mexico once a year, including a pool man to keep our pool clean twice a week and a house keeper twice and sometimes three times a month (my wife is mostly bed bound due to very painful feet) and we have a decent home in a generally nice part of a nice desert town East of Palm Springs. A new (2017 last year) Benz convertible, which I really fought tooth and nail against getting. Really! I did! I told my wife we didn't need it! We can't afford it, I said! I fought her hard against it! I did. Well...sort of... anyway...I guess I lost...kind of...
We were lucky enough the thru inheritances from both of our parents to buy a good home with a good down payment and smart enough to wait until the housing market burst (and anyone who didn't see that bubble doesn't deserve a good house (Just a joke)) which left us with some decent money in the bank, which is where it will stay and never in the Market in any manner. We are too old to take any chances with it.
So yes, we are doing OK. But the problem is that if there is any earthquake, literally or figuratively, then we will be fucked fairly easily and that does worry me. My wife just seems to accept the reality of day to day, while I who grew up poor and sometime homeless and have built myself up before, only to have it crash all down around me for no fucking good reason and no fault of my own, sit up nights sometimes worrying about all of the things that could hit us, even there is no sign of them. It's like worrying about tornadoes in Hawaii. Technically possible, but it's really not going to happen.
But to tell you the truth, ever since the idiot took over in the Oval Office, who painfully obviously hasn't even the slightest idea of how the markets or tariffs or even the most basic 6th grade concept of how economics work took over and is now finally trying to do things, like a two year old in a crib fulled with the most delicate pieces of crystal work that represents all of what the people of America have spent generations working on and handing down, again and again, does one hope that he doesn't swing his childish arms and legs about too much before we can get rid of him and that he will not do to much damage and that the damage he does do does not upset my private little dingy that my wife and I have built and are trying to live trying to live out our elderly golden years in, without wanting to live rich or poor and causing trouble for none, just wanting to be quietly left alone, just comfortable and with as few of worries as possible because we think we have earned it. The motto of the Trump Administration is: He Has To Go.
Great comment in general but that particular sentence caught my eye. We were doing a whale count on Maui in 2006 and an ominous dark cloud sailed past and being from the midwest I told my wife that it look just like the kind of cloud from which tornadoes appear and sure enough a funnel came down and hit the ground for 10-15 seconds about a mile or so away.
I went on a guided tour last January (2017) of whale watching ion Maui and it was wonderful. Of course it always looks better in the advertising and I didn't have a great camera with me, but I still have the camera of my mind with me of that cruise and seeing it all first hand is better then any photos any time.
I've experienced both being a millionaire and a bankrupt. Unfortunately they were in the wrong order.
Supply Side Economics works. It does indeed create the best opportunities for wealth accumulation.
Downside? It rewards the few at the expense of the many. Can SSE be adjusted to include more in the wealth accumulation? The answer is no unless you subscribe to the philosophy of wealth redistribution.
Example: A few thousand 'market trader/hedge fund managers each make $80 Million a year. Perspective--cut in half their salaries and pay pizza shop employees $75 per hour. Would the pizzas price then be $100 each or remain at about $10? Any thoughts?
You all think about it. I'm going to bed. And I'm not going to think about it. Sweet dreams to you all.
One more thing. If your thoughts are stuck in a box---this is not for you.
There's a truisim on "the Street". The little guy tends to buy high and sell low. The "big boys" tend to buy low and sell high.
(Which is why the big boys tend to stay big (wealthy) or get even richer, and the little guys stay the same and/or lose money).
I was trying to 'center' this conversational thought on the vast majority of Americans that punch a time card, go to work everyday, play by the rules ( such as they are ) and dwell in a universe far away from the from the 'wannabe and the already are' investment universe world.
Voted you up. Your response demands it.
When the market tanked in 2008, most inexperienced investors sold off most (or even all) of their holdings. (Can't say I blame them...). But people like Warren Buffet were doing the opposite -- putting lots of money into the market! He was buy stocks of great companies "on sale":
The profits from the Oracle of Omaha's crisis-era deals have raked in "$10 billion and counting," says The Wall Street Journal .
The deals Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made from 2008 to 2011 involved giant, blue-chip companies like Mars, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Dow Chemical. Taking advantage of the general atmosphere of panic, Berkshire Hathaway was able to use its "gigantic cash hoard to move swiftly and exact lucrative terms that created a stream of payments from the borrowers," says the Journal.
(LINK)
(Which is one of the reasons why he is one of the richest people in the entire world-- and people like me are not
.
Ideally one should live off interest and dividends-- and never have to sell any stock. But in order to do that, one has to have a pretty large amount of money invested....
Actually the "big boys" can move the market the way they want it to go. We're seeing an example right now of big corporations using the new massive tax break, not to hire more people or increase wages, but to buy back huge amounts stock to goose the price up so the top executives' can later sell at this inflated price and get a hefty capital gains profit, which, of course, is taxed at a much lower rate than regular income -- another way the tax code is tilted to the very wealthy in general. The tax code has been rigged toward the wealthy for so long in so many wasy and by both major parties it's just taken for granted that that's the way it has to be. And, of course, to even try to fix this redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy is somehow anti-American or even, shudder, COMMUNISM, EEEEEEEEEK, when, in fact, it was the exact prescription for fair taxation espoused by Alexander Hamilton.
There are a lot of people who are worth over a million on paper, too. It how you want to define wealth. Assets or liquidity?
That's really a key point. If most of your assets aren't very liquid (i.e. you can't sell them-- or they are difficult to sell and if you did you'd only get back a fraction of their previous worth) -- your true net worth may be much lower than you realize.
It can the other way too. You can make capital investments in your business and do more in annual sales than you have total capital invested in it. If it is profitable with a history of strong growth it can be worth around eighteen times earnings. This can make it far more valuable than the amount of capital investment you have.
Mark Cuban questioned Donald Trump claiming to be a billionaire by saying that Trump's money was all leveraged paper and that a true billionaire was a person who walk into his bank and walk out with a literal billion dollars in cash. He said he could, but strongly doubted that Trump could.
A while back I read a very interesting book: The Millionaire Next Door . A very thorough study of Millionaires. Lots of facts and figures. Especially interesting to me was what most millionaires had in common.
Spoiler alert (for those who don't want to read the book)-- some characteristics of millionaires were more highly correlated with financial success than others. (Some showed very high correlation, other fairly high, and some even had a negative correlation). But one of the highest indicators of financial success, in being a millionaire: owning your own business. (Although of course there were many who didn't).
If/when I own my own business (it may be happening within a year or so..?), I would put a lot of time and effort into it. I would reinvest much of the profits. But I would also diversify-- and invest some money in stocks.
And speaking of millionaires (actually in today's world we should be talking about multi-millionaires), I recently came across an excellent TV programme. Its on MSNBC (but its not at all political) every Sunday morning at 7:30 AM ET. Its called "Your Business" with J.J. Ramberg. She presents a lot of information in a short time-- not only from her and her staff but also from other small business owners who call in with useful tips. If you own your own business or are planning to, you will probably find some useful ideas on the show
All you rightwingers above who are counting on Medicare to be there when you turn 65 must not be paying attention to what the Republiscum party plans to do:
The lede: