How the Richest 1% in America Compare to the Wealthy in Other Countries (2024)

FAQs

How wealthy is the US compared to other countries? ›

The U.S. is now home to 37% of the world's millionaires, up from 35% in 2018. The divergence grows even more at the top of the wealth ladder. The U.S. has 9,850 centi-millionaires — those worth $100 million or more — compared with China's 2,352. The U.S. has about 788 billionaires to China's 305.

You need more money than ever to enter the ranks of the top 1% of the richest Americans. To join the club of the wealthiest citizens in the U.S., you'll need at least $5.8 million, up about 15% up from $5.1 million one year ago, according to global real estate company Knight Frank's 2024 Wealth Report.

The top 1% of American earners now control more wealth than the nation's entire middle class, federal data show. More than one-quarter of all household wealth, 26.5%, belongs to Americans who earn enough money to rank in the top percentile by income, according to Federal Reserve statistics through mid-2023.

For example, the top 1 percent of households hold 30.6 percent of the total wealth, according to the Federal Reserve. But just the top 0.1 percent own 14 percent of the total wealth, giving them a stunning average of more than $1.52 billion per household.

Top 2% wealth: The top 2% of Americans have a net worth of about $2.472 million, aligning closely with the surveyed perception of wealth. Top 5% wealth: The next tier, the top 5%, has a net worth of around $1.03 million. Top 10% wealth: The top 10% of the population has a net worth of approximately $854,900.

According to Credit Suisse, individuals with more than $1 million in wealth sit in the top 1 percent bracket. The billionaire class is $2.6 trillion richer than before the pandemic, even if billionaire fortunes slightly fell in 2022 after their record-smashing peak in 2021.

The term “top 1%” typically refers to people among the top 1% wealthiest Americans, as measured by either annual income or net worth. The income of those in the top 1% is many multiples above that of the average American.

According to the latest findings from the 18th edition of the Wealth Report by Douglas Elliman and Knight Frank, a person needs $5.8 million to be considered in the wealthiest 1% — a figure that, while substantial, is a far cry from the billionaire benchmark.

The top 1% of household net worth in the U.S. was just shy of $13.7 million in 2023. An individual would have to earn an average of $407,500 per year to join the top 1%. A household would need an income of $591,550. The median household income was $74,580 in 2023 and $45,440 for individuals.

Are the rich in the US adding more years to their life than the poor? ›

They found men who had reached the age of 40 in 2014 and were in the top 10% in household income could expect to live to 88 years old. For those that were in the bottom 10%, life expectancy was just 76. This means that the richest Americans live 12 years longer than the poorest.

Key Takeaways. Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH, is the richest person and the richest man in the world with a net worth of $215 billion. After Arnault is Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. Other billionaires with some of the largest net worths include Tesla's Musk, Microsoft's Bill Gates, and Oracle's Larry Ellison.

In this article, White is used to describe non-Hispanic White householders; Black householders can be either Hispanic or non-Hispanic. In 2021, households with a White householder made up 65.3% of all U.S. households and held 80.0% of all wealth.

The 1% Now Hold $44 Trillion in Wealth: The One Asset That Led to Major Gains. America's 1% is getting richer. As CNBC reported, the wealth of the ultra rich hit a record $44.6 trillion — a $2 trillion increase — at the end of the fourth quarter, according to new data from the Federal Reserve.

The United States is the undisputed heavyweight when it comes to the economies of the world. America's gross domestic product in 2022 was more than 40% greater than that of China, the world No. 2. Even more striking, U.S. GDP was over five times that of the next two largest economies, Japan and Germany.

While the United States has consistently had the world's largest economy for some time, in the last fifty years the world has seen the rapid rise and fall in relative terms of the economies of other countries while the share of the United States has also fluctuated.

That's because consumer spending, which accounts for the biggest part of US GDP, has been relentless, even in the face of the highest interest rates in 23 years. But what's perhaps most remarkable about the US economic growth rate is how much it towers over similarly sized advanced economies.

There are different ways to measure GDP, such as nominal GDP, real GDP, GDP per capita, and purchasing power parity. The U.S. has the largest GDP in the world and China has the second largest.