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How many Americans are now actually millionaires?

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  krishna  •  6 years ago  •  75 comments

How many Americans are now actually millionaires?

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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.''


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Krishna
Professor Expert
2  seeder  Krishna    6 years ago

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.''

Self-made millionaire: We're part of the middle class
Millionaires are the new middle class  

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.

 
 
 
Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו
Junior Participates
2.1  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו  replied to  Krishna @2    6 years ago
That's more than ever before and marks a 400,000 person increase from the previous year.

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.

 
 
 
Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו
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2.1.1  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו  replied to  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו @2.1    6 years ago

"Not" in the last sentence should be "now."

 
 
 
Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו
Junior Participates
2.1.3  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו  replied to    6 years ago
I thought all you people that spend all day on this site everyday were all widely successful and rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

I'm doin' fine thanks.  I'm betting you don't have any mirrors in your house.

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
2.1.4  seeder  Krishna  replied to  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו @2.1    6 years ago
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.

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%. 

 
 
 
Randy
Sophomore Participates
2.1.5  Randy  replied to  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו @2.1.3    6 years ago
I'm doin' fine thanks.  I'm betting you don't have any mirrors in your house

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.

 
 
 
Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו
Junior Participates
2.1.6  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו  replied to  Randy @2.1.5    6 years ago
It's like worrying about tornadoes in Hawaii.

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. 

 
 
 
Randy
Sophomore Participates
2.1.7  Randy  replied to  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו @2.1.6    6 years ago

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.

 
 
 
XXJefferson51
Senior Guide
2.2  XXJefferson51  replied to  Krishna @2    6 years ago

A rising tide lifts all boats.  Wages are now under Trump beginning to go up.  Also more of the middle class went up to rich than down to working class or poor.  

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
2.2.1  seeder  Krishna  replied to  XXJefferson51 @2.2    6 years ago
A rising tide lifts all boats.

An interesting variation of that saying:

Anyone can be a genius in a Bull market! :-)

(I think many people who recently entered the market for the first time and have kept seeing their stock continually go up may get overconfident. Despite a few days of minor pullbacks, most evidence is that the current bull market is by no means over-- but still, many novices may not reralize that it still pays to exercise a reasonable degree of caution).  

 
 
 
Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו
Junior Participates
2.2.2  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו  replied to  XXJefferson51 @2.2    6 years ago
A rising tide lifts all boats.

Cheesy, cheap, easy and meaningless platitudes like that are the stock-in-trade of people who either can't understand the real world or are trying to sell snake-oil to Gomer. 

 
 
 
Randy
Sophomore Participates
2.2.3  Randy  replied to  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו @2.2.2    6 years ago

I agree. Meaningless crap. Completely untrue.

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
3  Buzz of the Orient    6 years ago

I've experienced both being a millionaire and a bankrupt. Unfortunately they were in the wrong order.

 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
4  bbl-1    6 years ago

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.

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
4.1  seeder  Krishna  replied to  bbl-1 @4    6 years ago
Downside?  It rewards the few at the expense of the many.

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).

 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
4.1.1  bbl-1  replied to  Krishna @4.1    6 years ago

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. 

 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
4.1.2  bbl-1  replied to  Krishna @4.1    6 years ago

Voted you up.  Your response demands it.

 
 
 
XXJefferson51
Senior Guide
4.1.3  XXJefferson51  replied to  Krishna @4.1    6 years ago

I’m a little guy who buys low as well as dollar cost averaging.  I tend to be a buy low and hold forever investor.  Even when I retire with a conservative portfolio I will only sell what I need to get by on month to month, never selling it all on some downturn.  

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
4.1.4  seeder  Krishna  replied to  XXJefferson51 @4.1.3    6 years ago
Even when I retire with a conservative portfolio I will only sell what I need to get by on month to month, never selling it all on some downturn.

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....

 
 
 
XXJefferson51
Senior Guide
4.1.5  XXJefferson51  replied to  Krishna @4.1.4    6 years ago

I’m going to try to do that. I have an annuity traditional IRA that pays a guaranteed 3.5% since 1992 and more will go into that as I get closer to retirement.  My goal is to live on social security and 3% of from what I roll into that annuity.  That way I’ll have steady income and principal will never shrink. Hopefully I’ll never have to tap the Roth IRA’s and I can pass them on to family forever tax free.  

 
 
 
Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו
Junior Participates
4.1.6  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו  replied to  Krishna @4.1    6 years ago
The "big boys" tend to buy low and sell high.

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. 

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
5  Perrie Halpern R.A.    6 years ago

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? 

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
5.1  seeder  Krishna  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @5    6 years ago

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.

 
 
 
Dean Moriarty
Professor Quiet
5.1.1  Dean Moriarty  replied to  Krishna @5.1    6 years ago

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. 

 
 
 
Randy
Sophomore Participates
5.2  Randy  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @5    6 years ago
Assets or liquidity?

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.

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
7  seeder  Krishna    6 years ago
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.

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.

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
7.2  seeder  Krishna  replied to  Krishna @7    6 years ago
But one of the highest indicators of financial success, in being a millionaire: owning your own business.

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

 
 
 
Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו
Junior Participates
8  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו    6 years ago

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:

The federal budget plan that the Senate passed last week is full of landmines for retirees. In keeping with long-term Republican proposals to privatize Medicare and Social Security and slash Medicaid, the budget template would hurt tens of millions of retirees.

full article:

 
 
 
XXJefferson51
Senior Guide
8.1  XXJefferson51  replied to  Atheist יוחנן בן אברהם אבינו @8    6 years ago

Oh, I fully intend on going with Medicare Advantage when I retire so that I can use my tax premiums to buy private medical insurance and bypass traditional Medicare.  Obama campaigned on gutting Medicare advantage as part of paying for Obamacare but between his election and Obamacare going into effect, we got so many seniors signed up for Medicare advantage it was politically impossible for congress to gut it.  Just like when obama gave us that social security tax holiday, I and others put that SS money into private Roth IRA savings accounts so that all that money will never be taxed.  

 
 
 
Randy
Sophomore Participates
8.1.1  Randy  replied to  XXJefferson51 @8.1    6 years ago

No one, no one  and I mean no one went after Medicare Advantage, though it will probably go away when if that bastard Ryan gets his hands on  it. (sigh) Anyway, where I live I can get Medicare Advantage for United Health Care from zero Premium. No co-pay for DR visits. no co-pay for most specialists. No co-pay for most scripts if your order them by mail. No dental though, which really sucks since teeth at our age are a bitch! Medicare should have dental because bad teeth lead to serious infections of the jaws and skull!

 
 
 
XXJefferson51
Senior Guide
8.1.2  XXJefferson51  replied to  Randy @8.1.1    6 years ago

Obama targeted Medicare advantage for the Medicare cuts to help mask the cost of Obamacare.  

 
 
 
pat wilson
Professor Participates
8.1.3  pat wilson  replied to  XXJefferson51 @8.1.2    6 years ago

Medicare advantage is private health insurance.

 
 
 
Cerenkov
Professor Silent
8.1.4  Cerenkov  replied to  XXJefferson51 @8.1    6 years ago

Medicare Advantage is definitely the way to go. I signed up both my parents when they were eligible. 

 
 
 
Raven Wing
Professor Guide
8.1.5  Raven Wing  replied to  pat wilson @8.1.3    6 years ago

That is what I have, and I am very happy with it. My company offers a My Advocate program that provides the Members a quick and comprehensive explanation of their coverage and where/how to apply for other benefits outside of the company that the Member may be eligible for as well. I have use My Advocate a few times and really appreciate the information I was given.

And.... I have never been denied any treatment I needed as recommended by a doctor or specialist, and the co-pays are really very reasonable. They also have a dental plan. Dealing with them is way easier and faster than trying to deal direct with Medicare direct. 

 
 
 
XXJefferson51
Senior Guide
8.1.6  XXJefferson51  replied to  pat wilson @8.1.3    6 years ago

It is and it’s paid for out of funds we paid into Medicare over the years.  It gives me the option of choosing private insurance over traditional Medicare with my tax dollars.  When democrats speak of Medicare for all, I think Medicare advantage for all. I just wish I could have a private option for what I put away for social security retirement as well.  

 
 

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