Here's the census data from Wikpedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:American_Income.png The top 1.5% of households make over $250K a year. The top 5% make over $157K. So from which segment are all these millionaires?
This report is fake! Don't believe it, because they run a survey out of 516 (or 560, I can not remember the exact number) people. So this game is more or less polling very small number of people then use this number for overall country.
I can believe it. The figures are hiding something obvious (big mortgages on the primary property!). If you say 5% >500K is reasonable to believe. I can believe that another 10% have bought at least one more property or started a business by extracting equity from the primary home, some of them mortgaging the primary home to the hilt. Some may even have withdrawn equity and invested in the stock market.. And be showing a nice profit (for now atleast).
I believe it also. Granted I worked at the CBOT and CME where several thousand guy's are millionaires off the IPO's alone. I know dozens of people outside the trading world though who've been investing in 401k's since the 1980's and are sitting on seven figures in stock. Not to mention those who inherit a portfolio and home. As MVIC points out, just look around. Ballparks are filled each night with folks scooping up $50 tickets around the country. Run of the mill hotels charge for rooms what suites in the Plaza would have cost two decades ago. Jeez, I know a teacher who's making 90 something a year. Income doesn't tell the entire tale. For millions it's all about assets accumulated on the cheap.......
I concur. I think the numbers are severely understated. The guys on this board that are working odd jobs and trading at IB have no idea what is going on in the outside world. I have friends that I went to school with (high school) that are practically millionaires. And none of them even make over 50k a year. Between generous 401k plans in a strong stock market and flipping a few properties in a strong real estate market, there is a lot of cash out there. It's just that very few people on this forum actually understand that there are people who work for a living and actually get very generous compensation packages, even if their salary does not look that sexy.
I'm not sure why this is hard to believe. The numbers seem pretty easy for me to accept. And the "income" numbers being tossed around here have little to do with net worth as we are talking about assets here.
Nice to see other people being optimistic. It seemed I was the only one on this thread who thought this number wasn't incredible, a millionaire is a dime a dozen these days.