How Many Americans Are Millionaires?

If it feels like there are more millionaires in the U.S. than ever before, you're right. According to the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, there are about 29 million U.S. households with a net worth (all assets minus all liabilities) exceeding $1 million. This represents roughly 22% of all U.S. households, a share which has more than doubled since 1998 (after adjusting for inflation): However, most millionaires don't have $1 million in their checking or brokerage accounts. The bulk of their wealth is tied up in their home equity and retirement accounts. If we excluded both, the number of millionaire households in the U.S. would drop by over 50%. While this might seem obvious to some, it paints a complex picture of what it means to be a "millionaire" in America. This is why answering the question "How many Americans are millionaires?" technically depends on how you define one. Let's dig in.

What is a Millionaire?

The classic definition of a millionaire is a $1M net worth. That is all of your assets (i.e., everything you own) minus all of your liabilities (i.e., everything you owe to others). While technically correct, some would argue that this definition is inaccurate because, for many, that wealth isn't always easily accessible. After all, if you have a $1M home but only $10k in your checking account, do you really feel like a "millionaire"? So let's look at some additional definitions to classify millionaires:

• Net worth (ex home): This is your net worth minus any home equity you have. This means that you would take your net worth and exclude the value of your primary residence along with any mortgage debt remaining on it.
• Net worth (ex home & retirement): This is your net worth minus home equity and your retirement accounts. Some would argue that you shouldn't count retirement assets as a traditional form of wealth until you reach retirement age since these assets are earmarked for future spending.
• Liquid net worth: This is what you could write a check for. It is your non-retirement financial assets minus all debts (besides mortgage debt). This would exclude equity in a private business or other real estate. It is essentially all of your liquid assets minus any shorter-term debt (e.g., credit cards, auto loans, etc.). [Author's note: Previously I have defined liquid net worth as liquid assets minus all debts (including mortgage debt). However, given the long-term nature of mortgage debt (and that I have already excluded it in the two definitions above), it wouldn't make sense to remove it here as well.]

With these definitions in mind, below is a summary of what share and total number of U.S. households fit into each (using the 2025 SCF data): As you can see, while 21.5% of all U.S. households are millionaires based on the traditional definition, when we exclude illiquid assets, that percentage drops to just 6.1%.  This means that only around 28% of millionaires are millionaires based on their liquid net worth alone. You can see this in the chart below which shows the percentage of millionaires that fit into each definition: If we excluded home equity and retirement accounts, not even half of millionaire households would still be considered millionaires. There's nothing wrong with this, but it illustrates how much millionaire wealth is tied up in illiquid assets. But regardless of how you define a millionaire, the share of U.S. households that fit each definition has gone up over time, especially in the last six years:   What's interesting about this plot is how much housing has impacted millionaire wealth during certain time periods. For example, from 2007 to 2010, the share of U.S. households that were millionaires (based on net worth) fell even as the share of millionaires (based on net worth excluding their home) rose. This illustrates how an inflated asset class (e.g., U.S. housing in 2007) can temporarily distort the number of millionaires we see in the data. Now that we have looked at what a millionaire is, let's turn to what millionaires own and why it varies by total wealth.

What Do Millionaires Own? (And Why They Aren't All The Same)

Before we can look at what millionaires own, we must first understand that not all millionaires are the same. After all, there's a big difference between having $1M and having $10M. You can see it in the data too. For example, there are nearly 10x more households with $1M-$10M than there are households with over $10M. You can see this in the plot below which shows the total number of millionaire households in the U.S. going back to 1989, based on inflation-adjusted net worth: Though there are more decamillionaires today than ever before, it's the absolute increase in millionaires ($1M+) over the last six years that has been the most profound. When we break millionaire wealth down into smaller slices, we see that 77% of millionaires have less than $5M in net worth with the largest group (44%) having just $1M-$2M: This illustrates the extreme right skew in millionaire wealth. In other words, the vast majority of millionaires are single-digit millionaires, not decamillionaires or centamillionaires. This isn't a problem, but it does change what these millionaires tend to own. If we were to look at the share of net worth allocated across various asset classes, we would see that the wealthier the millionaire, the more of their wealth sits in businesses and stocks (as opposed to home equity and retirement accounts): For households with $1M-$2M, home equity makes up around 33% of their combined wealth, compared to just 7% for those with $10M+. Conversely, among those with $10M+, private businesses make up around 33% of their combined wealth, compared to 5% for those with $1M-$2M. Of course, correlation doesn't mean causation. You can start a business and buy all the stocks you want and there's no guarantee that you'll become a decamillionaire. Survivorship bias dominates the further we go up the wealth spectrum. But it goes beyond that. Because most millionaires aren't like most households. In fact, they tend to be atypical in one big way.

Why It's Okay If You Aren't a Millionaire

So far we've discussed millionaires as if they were a common occurrence in American society. And while they are less rare today than ever before, being one of them isn't the norm, especially if you're younger. We can see this clearly if we look at the share of households within each age group that are millionaires: As you can see, only 2% of households under 35 and 13% of households 35-44 have a $1M+ net worth. Compare this with households 55 and up, where over 30% are millionaires. Putting it all together, the median age of U.S. millionaire households is 63. This means that half of all millionaire households are older than this. So if you want to benchmark yourself against millionaires, you should make sure you're around their age as well. If you're not, then it's not a fair comparison. After all, how can you equate yourself with people who've had an extra ten (or more) years to save and invest their money? That's like comparing a kindergartner's strength to a teenager's. And this goes beyond young people. Across America as a whole, millionaires are still in the minority. We can see this by looking at the number of households on the first four levels of The Wealth Ladder from 1989-2025: While the share of U.S. households in Level 4 ($1M+) has increased in recent years, the vast majority of America (around 78%) still lives in Level 3 ($100k-$1M) or below. While some on social media may claim that $1M is not a lot of money, it definitely is. This is true within America and even truer on a worldwide scale. According to UBS's 2026 Global Wealth Report, having $1M in wealth would put you in the top 1.5% of adults globally. Even having just $100k would put you in the top 17%:   This demonstrates just how out of touch some people can be when it comes to having $1M (or more). Because being a millionaire in 2025 is still the exception, not the rule. Of course, some of you won't agree with me. Some of you won't be swayed by global comparisons or by age adjustments. And that's fine. But it doesn't make them any less true. I'm not here to convince you though. I just present the data and let you decide for yourself. Because you can believe whatever you want. You can choose who to compare yourself with. You can compare yourself to the rich, or to the poor. To your most successful peers or to your least. Or to no one at all. All I'm telling you is that being a millionaire, especially a young millionaire, is rare. What you make of that is up to you. Thank you for reading. If you liked this post, consider signing up for my newsletter. This is post 527. Any code I have related to this post can be found here with the same numbering: https://github.com/nmaggiulli/of-dollars-and-data

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