Contrary to popular opinion, the economy was good in 2024. The latest evidence of that is a new study from UBS which concluded that the United States minted, on average, more than 1,000 new millionaires every single day last year.
America got 379,000 new millionaires in 2024 alone, bringing its grand total to about 23.8 million millionaires. The United States has approximately 40% of the world’s millionaires despite having only around 4% of the world’s population.
UBS attributed the rise in the number of new members in the seven-figure club primarily to strong markets and a stable dollar. In 2025, we may see a slowdown in the number of new millionaires created, according to an economist at UBS, but there remains potential for strong growth.
Now for the obligatory “also a lot of people were struggling last year” part: at last count, the United States had about 36.8 million people living in poverty. The headline economic problem last year — higher than normal inflation — disproportionately impacts those at the lowest end of the wealth spectrum, who generally must allocate a much higher proportion of their income to necessities. Stock ownership is most concentrated among higher-income Americans, so the less well-to-do also often miss out on the benefits of rising financial markets.
We still have more people living in poverty than we do millionaires here in the United States. However, while the poverty rate has remained stable or even declined slightly in the past several official measurements from the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of people becoming millionaires for the first time has jumped significantly. I’d call that progress.
Of course, we can all agree that even one child raised in poverty is too many and it would be great if the poverty rate was falling much more dramatically. In the meantime, though, maybe the left should stop pillorying a group of 23.8 million people who tend to be voters as well as political donors and who didn’t have anything to do with creating poverty as a social problem.
I am not one of 2024’s new millionaires, because I became a millionaire in 2023. While I am certainly not complaining about having a bit of money saved up and invested, it was not exactly a cakewalk to get to that point. I have not inherited any wealth: I clawed my way into a six-figure salary working a 60-hour-per-week job that I absolutely loathed for nine years, and made a lot of sacrifices to invest a huge proportion of my income. This was not all some vapid quest for frivolous status symbols: I still drive a 2013 subcompact car with a piece of Gorilla Tape holding the front bumper in place. Rather, I set out to, eventually, buy my own life back, which seemed to me to be a relatively noble goal.
So, I do get a little cantankerous these days when I see the “eat the rich” rhetoric thrown about at protests and realize they are talking about me and around 23.8 million other Americans, the vast majority of whom earned their money legitimately, never knowingly harmed or exploited anyone, and are actively engaged in some form of effort to improve their communities. I completely agree that billionaires need to be reined in, that the top marginal income tax rate should be quite a bit higher, and that the estate tax exemption should be quite a bit lower. I suppose “eat the super rich” simply makes for too wordy a sign, though.
As a white dude, I don’t even get to take credit for any savvy financial maneuvering without being swiftly reminded by everyone in my immediate vicinity that I have to chalk it up to my vast privilege. I’m not discounting that, yet I can also guarantee that one does not simply sit around effortlessly marinating in privilege as graduate degrees and stacks of hundred dollar bills pile up around you.
Bernie Sanders sure seems down with bringing millionaires back into the Democratic fold. He has been one of the most remarkably consistent politicians in his messaging over decades, yet he made one pretty significant change in recent years. Sanders used to rail against “millionaires and billionaires” before he became a millionaire himself. Now Sanders mostly keeps his criticism to “billionaires.”
Millionaires are doing fine. They don’t need me defending them. But for crying out loud, the political left is already asking millionaires to vote to increase their own taxes. Do they really also need to make us feel like pieces of shit while they’re at it?
Millionaires now make up about 7% of the U.S. population. With more than a thousand new millionaires created every day last year, millionaires are also one of the fastest growing demographic groups in America. Maybe the left should stop pushing them away, right into the open arms of the Republican Party.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].
