An Internet search tells me that there are over 24 million millionaires in the United States. That’s almost nine percent of the population. Every eleventh person. 88 percent of millionaires are self-made – reading the report makes me believe that self-made actually translates to ‘did no inherit a million bucks.’ They very much tend to live below their means. 80 percent are first-generation millionaires. On the average, it took 28 years of working and investing to get to a million.
To make it into the top 1 percent of the nation, you need to have at least 13.7 million in assets. The minimum level for the top 2% is 2.7 million. The average American net worth is $1,064,000 – but the median is $193,000. The top tenth of a percent – one in a thousand – has reached $62 million.
Time was – even in my lifetime – when a silver dollar contained almost an ounce of silver. When my father was a teenager, a twenty-dollar gold piece contained about an ounce of gold. Today, silver’s spot price (online) is $59 and gold is about $4,000 per ounce. There were a lot less millionaires when gold was available for $20.
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