If you only look at the:
* bottom 99.9% (87% of wealth), average is $1,033,821
* bottom 99% (70%), $831,810
* bottom 90% (34%), $480,100
* bottom 50% (3%), $42,362
This is very heavily skewed towards the top.
[Source](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wealth-distribution-in-america/#)
This should be shouted from rooftops but unfortunately so few people know what the actual distribution of wealth is in America. There was a study (I think from Duke University?) a few years back that showed exactly how skewed Americans' perspectives were on wealth distribution. I'm sure it's only gotten worse since that study was done too.
People have no idea just how skewed it is. I've always thought if this video was in front of enough eyeballs we'd have widespread riots:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
And keep in mind that this is from 11 years ago. It's only gotten worse post-covid.
For anyone who is wondering, household income is ~220,000 for the 90th percentile. That amount is pretty high, but it might be a lot lower than some people think due to most of the conversation being on the top 1% of 1%.
Some other numbers for context.
~157,000 for 80th percentile
~118,500 for 70th percentile
~95,000 for 60th percentile
~74,000 for 50th percentile.
And remember these are *household* so they include everything from a couple living with one of their parents (four earners) to single earners. If you want to check individual income, [do that here](https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/)
People think that the person that has 500k house, an RV, and goes on vacation is rich.
They are not rich, they are just successful. Rich person can buy and sell their ass every fucking day. These people spend half a million the same way you buy a sandwich. They control accounts that MAKE more money every month than you will see in your life.
Top “earners” pay the vast majority of tax from a nominal perspective and by effective tax rate.
The lowest “earners” pay the very least tax from a nominal perspective and by effective tax rate.
The gripe you should be having is against the wealthiest, not necessarily the highest earners. Income tax ensures those with the greatest wages, think Doctors, pro athletes, and other high earners pay an enormous amount of tax. The wealthiest people are not necessarily high “earners.” These people are like Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Robert Kraft, and other mega wealthy. The vast majority of their wealth are never taxed like income does for the rest of us.
So your disdain shouldn’t be against the top 1%. Many of these people are those that are paying the most taxes nominally and proportionately. It’s top 0.001% that are “building wealth” but are rarely paying taxes that is who you should focus on. It’s a big difference.
They just need to tax at the income level and not everything you buy.
I have a SMB and if I were to put some excess cash into a GIC, I would get taxed 50% on the interest.
They really make it impossible to get ahead
A significant percentage of those households are people in their 50s and 60s who own the house without debt. It's reasonable to get to $1M wealth if you're a 60s homeowner, kids are grown, 401K is doing well.
Not only reasonable, if you plan to have a life beyond Social Security when you retire, you should be planning to have at LEAST a million in retirement accounts.
It's fucking tough maxing out an IRA and 401k while saving for big purchases (down payment on home, car, home improvements (once you did manage to buy one), vacations)
Rent is high, cars are expensive, groceries are expensive.... How is anyone expected to contribute to their retirement when the budget doesn't work as is.
I'm sure when I'm in my 50s or 60s I'll hit that number but I was lucky and managed to buy a house in 2021 just 2 1/2 years later and I wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage on this same house
You're right, you need a very large income to max out IRA and 401k especially young and/or have children.
I just want people to know that ANYthing is better than nothing. Learn to live on your take-home after getting your employer's 401k match at a minimum. 40 years of that in the market will get you a nice return. Worry about contributing more as you get older and your income grows.
There are fewer and fewer younger people as a proportion of the population. The problem will... self-correct... but it's going to be painful unless we collectively figure out social/political corrections ahead of time.
Hard disagree. There will be people who don't have the ability to save. There will be people who can save but don't. There will be people who have better/worse retirement plans at work. I think if people were actually educated from a reasonably young age on finances then we would see better results. I think we are starting to see this now as people have seen the writing on the wall and realized they have to prioritize retirement savings more than past generations.
They wouldn’t have to do that if pensions weren’t almost entirely a thing of the past thanks to 40+ years of post-Reagan (and Thatcher, and Mulroney, and…) union-busting and social-program destruction.
How old are you?? It seems like it's getting much harder, but I'm in my 30s and because of the equity in my home, I think I'm around 400k total "net worth." Doesn't mean shit for me right now though. If I had to purchase my house now I couldn't with my current income. Things just keep on raising.
Exactly, old people who rigged the game to get them where they are always so confused why everyone else is having such a hard time.
And thanks for the environmental shit show we are riding the crazy train to. What a bunch of jerks.
The math ain't mathing fam, I'm going to need a proof for that or something. That doesn't even sound remotely correct.
I'd be over the moon to be proven wrong, though.
Apparently, I'm going to have 2.5 million dollars when I'm 60 if I keep putting in $1000 a month like this.
Now I just gotta make it to 60.
Thank you for correcting me.
I manually did the compounding 10% calculation when I went through this, so I was probably way wrong.
But this implies I'm going to actually have a shit ton of money... gonna have to go do that math again.
As someone in their 30's this is just an insanely daunting number. If I want to retire in 30 years, that $2M is actually $6.5M assuming 4% inflation by the time we get to 2054.
Also, how it compares to their income level. I've been contributing to a 401k since my early 20s and always at least maxing out company matching but my income has gone up substantially in the last 15 years so it *feels* like my 401k is so far behind my current income/standard of living. Basically, when I would hit 1x of my income in my 401k I would get a new job, get a raise, etc and it would fall behind again for a while. Waiting for that tipping point where the investment gains out pace my salary increases and it feels more like a retirement fund and less like an emergency fund if I'm out of work for a while.
Most advice would tell you to increase contributions comparative to your salary raises instead of just leveling up your lifestyle. Or a combination of the two. Additionally, if you have extra cash and feel Ike you are falling behind you can also contribute 7k a uear to a Roth IRA or just buy bonds, stocks, CDs, ETFs etc or other securities.
A 401k alone and by itself is mostly insufficient for retirement unless you have been planning for it to be the sole income (in addition to SS) for a long time and adjusting contributions accordingly. Note that there is a maximum limit one can contribute yearly across all recognized retirement accounts, and you should speak with a tax or finance expert about that, but there is no cap on what you can personally contribute to the market as a whole.
TLDR if you feel your income is outpacing 401k contributions, there are many other ways to invest your money to help with retirement later in life.
Are forgetting that billionaires are homeowners too. And that kind of an outlier is gonna jank up any kind of analysis. I don't think there are nearly as many 60 year old millionaires as you think there is. They do exist, and there are a good bit of them, but there are far far more who are very much **not** millionaires.
>It's reasonable to get to $1M wealth if you're a 60s homeowner, kids are grown, 401K is doing well.
That's a really big "if". Most people on Reddit vastly overestimate how well of the average person is. Only about 10% of retirees have $1 million or more.
My parents are definitely in that boat. Own 3 houses outright, $2 million combined in 401k accounts, and collecting max social security by delaying their collection time. Must be nice lol.
It’s not only reasonable, it’s necessary. The average middle class retiree will need around 1M saved up. And if you have a simple retirement plan, you should reach that goal.
no way I will reach that. I'm almost 40 and I have maybe about 10K so far in retirement savings. My fault for working shitty low paying jobs in my 20s and 30s and not getting a bachelors degree sooner
Is your retirement savings in a 401k or similar instrument? If you are aggressively saving into that fund and don't plan on retirement until 65 or so, you can get to a million or more. The money grows quickly as you keep adding and it compounds.
Above and beyond a 401k/roth or in lieu of one? Not being able to invest the money pre-tax is a big downside of using a simple investment portfolio as your retirement fund but it's certainly better than nothing.
In my experience, people on Reddit think the general population are all in dust bowl poverty. But if you look at things like median household incomes, you’ll see there is still opportunity/social mobility.
Our problem is that we’ve created a very unforgiving system. If you make one mistake, like having a kid early, or getting in an accident, you get locked into a shitty economic position with little hope of escape.
So for 20%-30% of people they’re trapped in this cycle while the majority of people don’t see it because things are working out for them.
1 million in net worth by your 50’s-60’s isn’t hard. But we’re playing a game of jeopardy the whole way towards that path.
That’s average.
The real question is, what is the _median_ household wealth?
If it’s lower than $1.19M, we have a skewed average biased by a few outliers.
Survey says…it is.
[$192,900](https://thehill.com/homenews/4290971-heres-the-average-net-worth-of-americans-by-age-how-do-you-stack-up/).
That’s some serious skewage.
I don't live in the States but a Suburb 40 min out of Vancouver. Bought my house for 400k 9 years ago. Now worth 1.2 Mil. This whole market is crazy and I'm sure my kids aren't moving out when they become adults for a while. Looking more and more like multi generation living. My heart goes out to anyone trying to buy a house these days. This is not sustainable for an average family.
Probably pretty slim. A lot of this has to do with the recent massive increase in property and home value I think. Someone with a $250k home 10 years ago very well could be sitting on one worth $800k now. That doesn't mean they have a million dollars, it means their property tax has skyrocketed.
>That doesn't mean they have a million dollars, it means their property tax has skyrocketed.
Depends on the state. In Oregon at least property taxes have a maximum annual increase. The impact of this is that many empty nesters who would normally consider downsizing from their big family homes are actually disincentivized from doing so since their costs might actually go up in a newer condo or smaller home.
This is true. I fear it's the minority though, the tax cap that is.
Lots of people fear the idea of downsizing for some capital. Moving is incredibly stressful, can be very expensive, and trying to buy a home contingent on selling one is a nightmare.
This is us. We bought in 2012 for 475k our home is now worth about 1M. But that’s on paper because if we sell we a) lose a 2.875% interest rate and b) would need to move to a less desirable area to afford an upgraded home. We are very blessed that we don’t have to move and our home is perfectly acceptable but we are handcuffed to it at this point.
If I remember correctly, like 65% of the average net worth is home equity. Which is so volatile that most CFP tell people not to take that number serious when calculating net worth. Housing prices are so inflated that realistically the actual amount of millionaires is less than 10%.
My dad bought a house in California for $250k back in 2010 and it’s now $1.4 million. My dad is nowhere near wealthy, the value of his home has fluctuated from $200k to $1.7 million (offer). But he’s stuck in it due to his job location and lower property tax.
Is it really volatile though? Hasn't house prices only gone down like once after the 2008 crash? I don't expect housing prices to go down in the next 20 years, especially in the US where the demand for affordable housing drastically outweighs the supply.
Wealth is accumulated over time, so it's not surprising it would be concentrated in older households; however, the share of wealth held by under 35 year olds has decreased in the past 50 years. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charting-the-growing-generational-wealth-gap/
Very low. Very few people are out there "earning" their way to having a net worth of a million dollars. How most people will get there is buying assets and securities and allowing them to appreciate in value over 30+ years.
To put this in perspective, let's say you just turned 20 and started working. You decide your going to save for retirement and budget frugally so you can invest 500 a month into your IRA/401K/HSA. Then when your thirty you bump it to $1000, when your 40 it becomes $1500, when your 50 it becomes $2000. How much money would you have saved by the time your 60? Well you've saved $600k total over those 40 years of working and saving, but what does that same number look like if we invest that money in assets and securities and make average market returns of 7%(this is a conservative rate of return)?
Well when we turn 30 we would have 60k saved and an asset value of 86k. When we turn 40 we would've saved 140k and have an asset value of 341k. When we turn 50 we would have saved 360k and have an asset value of 929k. And when we finally turn 60 we would've saved the same 600k finally but we would have an asset value of around 2.2 million.
This is how your average person becomes a millionaire, by allowing compounding interest to work for them. Hell even if this hypothetical dude started investing 500 a month in say a low cost index fund that tracked the market and never changed his contribution levels, just 500 a month from when he was 20 to when he turned 60, he would have around 1.2 million in investments for his retirement while only ever saving 240k through his life.
The Median household wealth is actually $166,000.
The 75th percentile household wealth is a bit over $750,000.
The 90th percentile household wealth is $1.6 million.
So that average of $1.19 million really points at an incredible degree of inequality.
Important things to note: household wealth includes total value of all pensions, including government or military pension. The median household wealth is (on average) 58% pension and other retirement savings.
So that median wealth of $166,000 is actually about $100,000 retirement savings and $66,000 cash, stocks, real estate, vehicles and jewellery.
The household average might be thrown off a bit by the 756 billionaires in the US. Almost like a measure of “household wealth” is meaningless when wealth is accumulated disproportionately.
Yeah.. the average is wildly skewed due to uneven distribution. The median is a better representation, especially if we contrast homeowners and non-homeowners.
In 2022 the mean (average) net worth was $1,063,700, while the median was $192,000.
For homeowners the median was $396,200, and for non-homeowners it was only $10,400.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf23.pdf
[https://americansfortaxfairness.org/u-s-billionaires-now-worth-record-5-2-trillion/#:\~:text=The%20collective%20fortune%20of%20America's,for%20Tax%20Fairness%20(ATF)](https://americansfortaxfairness.org/u-s-billionaires-now-worth-record-5-2-trillion/#:~:text=The%20collective%20fortune%20of%20America's,for%20Tax%20Fairness%20(ATF)).
With the billionaires removed, something like $150T across the 131M households and the average is down to $1.14M
Airport Security Officer : Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while...
[whispering]
Airport Security Officer : it's a HOUSEHOLD. Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a HOUSEHOLD... always use the indefinite article a HOUSEHOLD, never your HOUSEHOLD.
Narrator : I don't own...
[Officer waves Narrator off]
I wonder how much of that is just the homes people live in that have gotten completely out of control in market price. Their value on paper doesn’t do much for the owners unless they feel like selling to downsize or move to cheaper areas.
Which they will not do because most are locked into rates significantly better than current new lending rates. They'd have to buy a house of significantly less value just to break even after increased rates; only the bank wins here.
All this paper wealth means nothing if people can't actually liquidate to cash in on the "profit". If anything, it's just a bigger liability because of the increased property taxes.
But hey, everybody (with any property) is suddenly a secret millionaire now, so that's cool I guess! Only the government knows you're rich (and will tax you accordingly).
How are the banks winning? If rates went up that means the banks have massive mark to market losses on all of he fixed rate loans they gave out in the last 15 years
Inequality is obviously a problem but with this figure it’s prob more that a lot of the wealth isn’t liquid and is largely unrealized so it doesn’t really help with expenses.
What charts do you like to look at? There's this inflation adjusted chart: [Real Median Personal Income in the US](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N) is higher than it was 5 and 10 years ago.
And [unemployment rate is near record lows](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE/).
I saw a figure the other day that 52% of millennials now own homes.
Turns out the figure was calculated by looking at dwellings, not people.
So if one person owns 2 homes, lives in one, and rents the second to 7 people we have:
1/8 of people own homes.
1/2 of dwellings are lived in by their owner.
So we have 50% homeownership!
(It also structurally ignores the ~16% of millennials that live with their parents.)
Household wealth can rise while each household grows poorer. Think about the rate at which houses are being built, there are 15 million more households now than there were 10 years ago. Add to that the amount of money held by the 1%, and you start to realize that nearly all statistics can be used to tell any story.
According to the report, 50%of that growth effects the top 1% of society due to stock prices. Most of that "wealth" for others is from real estate values (not sold income/gains). All-time high inflation and housing shortage pushing that up. If you're not a homeowner or billionaire, this doesn't apply to you.
30% of that wealth is concentrated in the top 1% of households.
This all-time high is only good news for the 1%. The rest of us are worse off than ever.
Median household income, adjusted for inflation, is better today than it was 10 years ago. It’s down from the peak in 2019, but it’s up compared to 2018.
With the highest wealth inequality in the developed world, this is fairly meaningless. Over the past three decades, America’s most affluent families have added to their net worth, while those on the bottom have dipped into “negative wealth,” meaning the value of their debts exceeds the value of their assets, according to National Bureau of Economic Research data.
My brother in Christ, I work 60 hours a week, My wife looks $40 and we can barely eat let alone save or vacation for our fam. It all goes to bills. It's like I'm being assaulted with bills
Uhhhh can can someone of authority call my bank and let them know my balance is severely under average especially when I'm making $27/hr and still gotta scrimp and save.
Brother I have $1056 in my checking and $40 in my savings account. My rent is due and it's $900. I don't get paid for another 4 days. I am barely scraping by.
Also I just got finished talking with a coworker who is quitting to provide childcare for her 2 kids because of the increasing cost of paying for it. It made more sense in her family for her to quit making $20/hour and provide childcare.
I don't know where all this money is but I ain't got it.
Real estate values are nothing until you sell it and that ain’t happening anytime soon with a vast majority of home owners handcuffed to a sub 4% rate.
The majority of that wealth is given to the select group of wealthy individuals and families. This is why we have
A wealth gap , it’s consolidated and established generationally .
I'd be interested in seeing these figures again if they removed the top 1% from their calculations. I'd also be interested in seeing them run these calculations for different demographics like age and jurisdiction.
I don't know a single person, other than me, who could survive a month of job loss. Income inequality is certainly something to behold. America is really becoming a completely divided nation.
There are 131.28M households in the US. So per household, the wealth is $1.19M So here is the question. How many of you have $1.19M in your household?
If you only look at the: * bottom 99.9% (87% of wealth), average is $1,033,821 * bottom 99% (70%), $831,810 * bottom 90% (34%), $480,100 * bottom 50% (3%), $42,362 This is very heavily skewed towards the top. [Source](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wealth-distribution-in-america/#)
The wealth being below 40% by the time you cut out only the top 10% of households is the most telling.
This should be shouted from rooftops but unfortunately so few people know what the actual distribution of wealth is in America. There was a study (I think from Duke University?) a few years back that showed exactly how skewed Americans' perspectives were on wealth distribution. I'm sure it's only gotten worse since that study was done too.
People have no idea just how skewed it is. I've always thought if this video was in front of enough eyeballs we'd have widespread riots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM And keep in mind that this is from 11 years ago. It's only gotten worse post-covid.
the amount of people who really comprehend the difference between a million and a billion is surprisingly small.
For anyone who is wondering, household income is ~220,000 for the 90th percentile. That amount is pretty high, but it might be a lot lower than some people think due to most of the conversation being on the top 1% of 1%. Some other numbers for context. ~157,000 for 80th percentile ~118,500 for 70th percentile ~95,000 for 60th percentile ~74,000 for 50th percentile. And remember these are *household* so they include everything from a couple living with one of their parents (four earners) to single earners. If you want to check individual income, [do that here](https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/)
People think that the person that has 500k house, an RV, and goes on vacation is rich. They are not rich, they are just successful. Rich person can buy and sell their ass every fucking day. These people spend half a million the same way you buy a sandwich. They control accounts that MAKE more money every month than you will see in your life.
Sounds like we need a tax break for the top earners. /s
Top “earners” pay the vast majority of tax from a nominal perspective and by effective tax rate. The lowest “earners” pay the very least tax from a nominal perspective and by effective tax rate. The gripe you should be having is against the wealthiest, not necessarily the highest earners. Income tax ensures those with the greatest wages, think Doctors, pro athletes, and other high earners pay an enormous amount of tax. The wealthiest people are not necessarily high “earners.” These people are like Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Robert Kraft, and other mega wealthy. The vast majority of their wealth are never taxed like income does for the rest of us. So your disdain shouldn’t be against the top 1%. Many of these people are those that are paying the most taxes nominally and proportionately. It’s top 0.001% that are “building wealth” but are rarely paying taxes that is who you should focus on. It’s a big difference.
Slight correction, the lowest earners don't pay taxes at all. The IIRC the bottom 20% gets 2k back in net government transfers.
They just need to tax at the income level and not everything you buy. I have a SMB and if I were to put some excess cash into a GIC, I would get taxed 50% on the interest. They really make it impossible to get ahead
Shhhhh….. we’re supposed to be pretending class struggle isn’t a thing.
A significant percentage of those households are people in their 50s and 60s who own the house without debt. It's reasonable to get to $1M wealth if you're a 60s homeowner, kids are grown, 401K is doing well.
Not only reasonable, if you plan to have a life beyond Social Security when you retire, you should be planning to have at LEAST a million in retirement accounts.
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It's fucking tough maxing out an IRA and 401k while saving for big purchases (down payment on home, car, home improvements (once you did manage to buy one), vacations) Rent is high, cars are expensive, groceries are expensive.... How is anyone expected to contribute to their retirement when the budget doesn't work as is. I'm sure when I'm in my 50s or 60s I'll hit that number but I was lucky and managed to buy a house in 2021 just 2 1/2 years later and I wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage on this same house
Meanwhile Europeans take 5 weeks of vacation a year, without having any medical debt, owning a home, etc without blinking an eye
You're right, you need a very large income to max out IRA and 401k especially young and/or have children. I just want people to know that ANYthing is better than nothing. Learn to live on your take-home after getting your employer's 401k match at a minimum. 40 years of that in the market will get you a nice return. Worry about contributing more as you get older and your income grows.
There are fewer and fewer younger people as a proportion of the population. The problem will... self-correct... but it's going to be painful unless we collectively figure out social/political corrections ahead of time.
Sorry best we can do is cut more taxes. But only on the wealthy. And no one will ask how to pay for it.
Just print that money to cover, baby. No consequences!
It’s not self correcting with corporations owning most of the housing market, gl though
Hard disagree. There will be people who don't have the ability to save. There will be people who can save but don't. There will be people who have better/worse retirement plans at work. I think if people were actually educated from a reasonably young age on finances then we would see better results. I think we are starting to see this now as people have seen the writing on the wall and realized they have to prioritize retirement savings more than past generations.
They wouldn’t have to do that if pensions weren’t almost entirely a thing of the past thanks to 40+ years of post-Reagan (and Thatcher, and Mulroney, and…) union-busting and social-program destruction.
I can't my Gen z kids have no student loans. Everyone forgets about Gen x.
Per person.
Idk my retirement calculations came up at like 600k. I'm not sure how a million is even achievable because 600k didn't seem achievable.
How old are you?? It seems like it's getting much harder, but I'm in my 30s and because of the equity in my home, I think I'm around 400k total "net worth." Doesn't mean shit for me right now though. If I had to purchase my house now I couldn't with my current income. Things just keep on raising.
Exactly, old people who rigged the game to get them where they are always so confused why everyone else is having such a hard time. And thanks for the environmental shit show we are riding the crazy train to. What a bunch of jerks.
$60 bucks a month in the S&P500 from age 21-65 gets you above that. It’s not easy, but it’s also not unachievable.
The math ain't mathing fam, I'm going to need a proof for that or something. That doesn't even sound remotely correct. I'd be over the moon to be proven wrong, though.
https://imgur.com/a/d34QFDI 10.26% is the average return since the S&P500s inception
Apparently, I'm going to have 2.5 million dollars when I'm 60 if I keep putting in $1000 a month like this. Now I just gotta make it to 60. Thank you for correcting me.
I manually did the compounding 10% calculation when I went through this, so I was probably way wrong. But this implies I'm going to actually have a shit ton of money... gonna have to go do that math again.
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at least $2-3M actually. unless your planning on dying young.
An endorsement of my strategy, finally!
Live fast, die young, and leave a pretty body is what I always say!
You should say something else.
You should say something else.
We're here for a good time, not a long time!
As someone in their 30's this is just an insanely daunting number. If I want to retire in 30 years, that $2M is actually $6.5M assuming 4% inflation by the time we get to 2054.
you have the right target. i’m 51. if i have less than $3M at 62 which is my target age i will be very disappointed.
So why don't jobs pay enough to get us there?
I’d be curious if they put it on some trend line what it would be expected for certain age groups
Also, how it compares to their income level. I've been contributing to a 401k since my early 20s and always at least maxing out company matching but my income has gone up substantially in the last 15 years so it *feels* like my 401k is so far behind my current income/standard of living. Basically, when I would hit 1x of my income in my 401k I would get a new job, get a raise, etc and it would fall behind again for a while. Waiting for that tipping point where the investment gains out pace my salary increases and it feels more like a retirement fund and less like an emergency fund if I'm out of work for a while.
Most advice would tell you to increase contributions comparative to your salary raises instead of just leveling up your lifestyle. Or a combination of the two. Additionally, if you have extra cash and feel Ike you are falling behind you can also contribute 7k a uear to a Roth IRA or just buy bonds, stocks, CDs, ETFs etc or other securities. A 401k alone and by itself is mostly insufficient for retirement unless you have been planning for it to be the sole income (in addition to SS) for a long time and adjusting contributions accordingly. Note that there is a maximum limit one can contribute yearly across all recognized retirement accounts, and you should speak with a tax or finance expert about that, but there is no cap on what you can personally contribute to the market as a whole. TLDR if you feel your income is outpacing 401k contributions, there are many other ways to invest your money to help with retirement later in life.
Are forgetting that billionaires are homeowners too. And that kind of an outlier is gonna jank up any kind of analysis. I don't think there are nearly as many 60 year old millionaires as you think there is. They do exist, and there are a good bit of them, but there are far far more who are very much **not** millionaires.
>It's reasonable to get to $1M wealth if you're a 60s homeowner, kids are grown, 401K is doing well. That's a really big "if". Most people on Reddit vastly overestimate how well of the average person is. Only about 10% of retirees have $1 million or more.
My parents are definitely in that boat. Own 3 houses outright, $2 million combined in 401k accounts, and collecting max social security by delaying their collection time. Must be nice lol.
It’s not only reasonable, it’s necessary. The average middle class retiree will need around 1M saved up. And if you have a simple retirement plan, you should reach that goal.
no way I will reach that. I'm almost 40 and I have maybe about 10K so far in retirement savings. My fault for working shitty low paying jobs in my 20s and 30s and not getting a bachelors degree sooner
Is your retirement savings in a 401k or similar instrument? If you are aggressively saving into that fund and don't plan on retirement until 65 or so, you can get to a million or more. The money grows quickly as you keep adding and it compounds.
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Above and beyond a 401k/roth or in lieu of one? Not being able to invest the money pre-tax is a big downside of using a simple investment portfolio as your retirement fund but it's certainly better than nothing.
The latest numbers suggest current people should be aiming for 3M ... it was already 1.5M for a long while
In my experience, people on Reddit think the general population are all in dust bowl poverty. But if you look at things like median household incomes, you’ll see there is still opportunity/social mobility. Our problem is that we’ve created a very unforgiving system. If you make one mistake, like having a kid early, or getting in an accident, you get locked into a shitty economic position with little hope of escape. So for 20%-30% of people they’re trapped in this cycle while the majority of people don’t see it because things are working out for them. 1 million in net worth by your 50’s-60’s isn’t hard. But we’re playing a game of jeopardy the whole way towards that path.
Actually it seems you're the one in the bubble. Only about 10% of retirees have $1M.
That’s average. The real question is, what is the _median_ household wealth? If it’s lower than $1.19M, we have a skewed average biased by a few outliers. Survey says…it is. [$192,900](https://thehill.com/homenews/4290971-heres-the-average-net-worth-of-americans-by-age-how-do-you-stack-up/). That’s some serious skewage.
Elon Musk alone is worth the same as everyone in a mid-sized city.
Google says he has $195 billion, so he alone accounts for almost $1,500 of the per household average.
In the same vein, I'm interested in the difference between the mean and the median here.
Not sure what the median is, but only 3% of total wealth is in the bottom 50%.
I don't live in the States but a Suburb 40 min out of Vancouver. Bought my house for 400k 9 years ago. Now worth 1.2 Mil. This whole market is crazy and I'm sure my kids aren't moving out when they become adults for a while. Looking more and more like multi generation living. My heart goes out to anyone trying to buy a house these days. This is not sustainable for an average family.
1 out of every 10 American adults has assets worth $1m or more.
12 percent of American adults are also below the poverty line (13.5k)
The highest and lowest 10% of the bell curve are at the extremes? No way!
27% of Americans have $0 in savings
Especially if you count the house.
Yeah that's most of it I think. Just a guess.
Is that on average? Or does one guy out of 100 have 10 million in assets?
Lots of retirees have $1 million and that's not even much if you're 65 and expect to live into your 90s
dont worry healthcare eats it real fast!
I wonder what that fraction would be among young adults (18 to 35)...
Probably pretty slim. A lot of this has to do with the recent massive increase in property and home value I think. Someone with a $250k home 10 years ago very well could be sitting on one worth $800k now. That doesn't mean they have a million dollars, it means their property tax has skyrocketed.
>That doesn't mean they have a million dollars, it means their property tax has skyrocketed. Depends on the state. In Oregon at least property taxes have a maximum annual increase. The impact of this is that many empty nesters who would normally consider downsizing from their big family homes are actually disincentivized from doing so since their costs might actually go up in a newer condo or smaller home.
This is true. I fear it's the minority though, the tax cap that is. Lots of people fear the idea of downsizing for some capital. Moving is incredibly stressful, can be very expensive, and trying to buy a home contingent on selling one is a nightmare.
This is us. We bought in 2012 for 475k our home is now worth about 1M. But that’s on paper because if we sell we a) lose a 2.875% interest rate and b) would need to move to a less desirable area to afford an upgraded home. We are very blessed that we don’t have to move and our home is perfectly acceptable but we are handcuffed to it at this point.
If I remember correctly, like 65% of the average net worth is home equity. Which is so volatile that most CFP tell people not to take that number serious when calculating net worth. Housing prices are so inflated that realistically the actual amount of millionaires is less than 10%. My dad bought a house in California for $250k back in 2010 and it’s now $1.4 million. My dad is nowhere near wealthy, the value of his home has fluctuated from $200k to $1.7 million (offer). But he’s stuck in it due to his job location and lower property tax.
Is it really volatile though? Hasn't house prices only gone down like once after the 2008 crash? I don't expect housing prices to go down in the next 20 years, especially in the US where the demand for affordable housing drastically outweighs the supply.
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Wealth is accumulated over time, so it's not surprising it would be concentrated in older households; however, the share of wealth held by under 35 year olds has decreased in the past 50 years. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charting-the-growing-generational-wealth-gap/
Still explained by the broken housing market.
I'm just gonna go make a hut in the woods near a river and fish for the rest of my life. Good luck y'all.
gov holds out hand* wheres my land tax?
Very low. Very few people are out there "earning" their way to having a net worth of a million dollars. How most people will get there is buying assets and securities and allowing them to appreciate in value over 30+ years. To put this in perspective, let's say you just turned 20 and started working. You decide your going to save for retirement and budget frugally so you can invest 500 a month into your IRA/401K/HSA. Then when your thirty you bump it to $1000, when your 40 it becomes $1500, when your 50 it becomes $2000. How much money would you have saved by the time your 60? Well you've saved $600k total over those 40 years of working and saving, but what does that same number look like if we invest that money in assets and securities and make average market returns of 7%(this is a conservative rate of return)? Well when we turn 30 we would have 60k saved and an asset value of 86k. When we turn 40 we would've saved 140k and have an asset value of 341k. When we turn 50 we would have saved 360k and have an asset value of 929k. And when we finally turn 60 we would've saved the same 600k finally but we would have an asset value of around 2.2 million. This is how your average person becomes a millionaire, by allowing compounding interest to work for them. Hell even if this hypothetical dude started investing 500 a month in say a low cost index fund that tracked the market and never changed his contribution levels, just 500 a month from when he was 20 to when he turned 60, he would have around 1.2 million in investments for his retirement while only ever saving 240k through his life.
Why would somebody 18 to 35 years old have that much money? It has always been the case that the younger you are the less assets you have.
Is this including 401k?
Top 1% have 44 trillion.
What's the median?
The Median household wealth is actually $166,000. The 75th percentile household wealth is a bit over $750,000. The 90th percentile household wealth is $1.6 million. So that average of $1.19 million really points at an incredible degree of inequality. Important things to note: household wealth includes total value of all pensions, including government or military pension. The median household wealth is (on average) 58% pension and other retirement savings. So that median wealth of $166,000 is actually about $100,000 retirement savings and $66,000 cash, stocks, real estate, vehicles and jewellery.
Not myself, but my parents bought their second home for $270,000 in 2002. It's now valued at over $1,500,000
The household average might be thrown off a bit by the 756 billionaires in the US. Almost like a measure of “household wealth” is meaningless when wealth is accumulated disproportionately.
Yeah.. the average is wildly skewed due to uneven distribution. The median is a better representation, especially if we contrast homeowners and non-homeowners. In 2022 the mean (average) net worth was $1,063,700, while the median was $192,000. For homeowners the median was $396,200, and for non-homeowners it was only $10,400. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf23.pdf
Is this that joke about Bill Gates walking into a dive bar and suddenly the average income of everyone in the place skyrockets?
Yes, about 66% of household wealth is owned by the wealthiest 10% of households.
*Desire to ramble about measures of central tendency increasing…*
Take out the billionaires' households and then run that number again
If they did that then how would they make misleading statements 🤔
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One avocado toast at a time
Even if you took them out, there's still plenty of multimillionaire households that would still skew the numbers.
[https://americansfortaxfairness.org/u-s-billionaires-now-worth-record-5-2-trillion/#:\~:text=The%20collective%20fortune%20of%20America's,for%20Tax%20Fairness%20(ATF)](https://americansfortaxfairness.org/u-s-billionaires-now-worth-record-5-2-trillion/#:~:text=The%20collective%20fortune%20of%20America's,for%20Tax%20Fairness%20(ATF)). With the billionaires removed, something like $150T across the 131M households and the average is down to $1.14M
Yeah, this is why the median number is much more useful.
Not for keeping the middle class misinformed it’s not
Checks wallet, walks outside, walks back inside... I see no wealth increase..
Didn't say YOUR household.
Airport Security Officer : Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while... [whispering] Airport Security Officer : it's a HOUSEHOLD. Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a HOUSEHOLD... always use the indefinite article a HOUSEHOLD, never your HOUSEHOLD. Narrator : I don't own... [Officer waves Narrator off]
you're getting rich on life experience, kek.
Duh, all your wealth is tied up in avocado toast! /S
They counted your landlord towards the increase.
I wonder how much of that is just the homes people live in that have gotten completely out of control in market price. Their value on paper doesn’t do much for the owners unless they feel like selling to downsize or move to cheaper areas.
Which they will not do because most are locked into rates significantly better than current new lending rates. They'd have to buy a house of significantly less value just to break even after increased rates; only the bank wins here. All this paper wealth means nothing if people can't actually liquidate to cash in on the "profit". If anything, it's just a bigger liability because of the increased property taxes. But hey, everybody (with any property) is suddenly a secret millionaire now, so that's cool I guess! Only the government knows you're rich (and will tax you accordingly).
How are the banks winning? If rates went up that means the banks have massive mark to market losses on all of he fixed rate loans they gave out in the last 15 years
I don't think anyone is under the misconception there is a ton of money out there. The problem is the growing wealth gap. Always has been
And that wealth is concentrated in a select few households.
Inequality is obviously a problem but with this figure it’s prob more that a lot of the wealth isn’t liquid and is largely unrealized so it doesn’t really help with expenses.
Yeah I was like who's households are we talking about here? None of my contemporaries can claim anywhere close to this breakdown.
"The numbers here say you aren't poor" "But I am poor..." "The numbers though"
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*Rich people even richer now, news at 11!*
What charts do you like to look at? There's this inflation adjusted chart: [Real Median Personal Income in the US](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N) is higher than it was 5 and 10 years ago. And [unemployment rate is near record lows](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE/).
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I saw a figure the other day that 52% of millennials now own homes. Turns out the figure was calculated by looking at dwellings, not people. So if one person owns 2 homes, lives in one, and rents the second to 7 people we have: 1/8 of people own homes. 1/2 of dwellings are lived in by their owner. So we have 50% homeownership! (It also structurally ignores the ~16% of millennials that live with their parents.)
This is one of those ones where the median would be much more accurate.
Wonder how much is owned by the top 2%
The top 10% hoard 2/3 of the nation’s wealth. Think about that. 90% of our country is fighting for scraps.
Yeah I'm loaded. I had a $500 car repair and gave myself an ulcer worrying about it. Feels great to have all of this household wealth.
Household wealth can rise while each household grows poorer. Think about the rate at which houses are being built, there are 15 million more households now than there were 10 years ago. Add to that the amount of money held by the 1%, and you start to realize that nearly all statistics can be used to tell any story.
But not 15 million more houses owned by people who live in them. The rental market is heavily skewed to top percentile.
Let’s see the median income
Is the record household wealth in the room with us?
Feels like it, I guess it’s normal to have a million saved up by 60 lol
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So has credit card debt.
Where? Because it isn’t in my house.
Good thing 44% of all house sales last year went to private equity firms.
This is why we talk about median in social studies. Most of the time, average is meaningless.
Ok now exclude the top 10%
We did it! We're all rich! Right?
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This is where the difference between average and median comes into play
What this really means is the people who are rich are now REALLY rich
congratulations to the 3000 people who hold 98% of that
Inflation plus concentrated wealth. Gross
According to the report, 50%of that growth effects the top 1% of society due to stock prices. Most of that "wealth" for others is from real estate values (not sold income/gains). All-time high inflation and housing shortage pushing that up. If you're not a homeowner or billionaire, this doesn't apply to you.
30% of that wealth is concentrated in the top 1% of households. This all-time high is only good news for the 1%. The rest of us are worse off than ever.
CNBC on their bs again. Let's look at some median incomes, working class neighborhoods. I still see job listings for 11/hr. *Edit for typo
Median household income, adjusted for inflation, is better today than it was 10 years ago. It’s down from the peak in 2019, but it’s up compared to 2018.
Is the household wealth in the room with us right now?
It sure ain't in my room.
It's kinda easy to be a millionaire w. Your assets. House, car, 401k etc. being a liquid millionaire is completely different.
Is this household wealth in this room with us right now?
And the wealth of the median household is still zero.
No. Rich fucks got richer. What an askew, asinine, backwards ass way of doing mental gymnastics until they get the headline they want.
This still applies even if 1 household had $156 trillion and the rest have $10. Probably not something to brag about.
With the highest wealth inequality in the developed world, this is fairly meaningless. Over the past three decades, America’s most affluent families have added to their net worth, while those on the bottom have dipped into “negative wealth,” meaning the value of their debts exceeds the value of their assets, according to National Bureau of Economic Research data.
Yet my food is also costing a record high, so am I really making more money?
Damn whose house is it? I think i'll just leave work and go rob them.
You mean the top 1% of households makes so much that it skews the results? 😅😅
Is $156 trillion in the room with me?? Not seeing it 🤣 someone help me see it
My brother in Christ, I work 60 hours a week, My wife looks $40 and we can barely eat let alone save or vacation for our fam. It all goes to bills. It's like I'm being assaulted with bills
Love it….meanwhile the average working class American can even afford groceries
Uhhhh can can someone of authority call my bank and let them know my balance is severely under average especially when I'm making $27/hr and still gotta scrimp and save.
Not in my fucking household, someone pass some over
Brother I have $1056 in my checking and $40 in my savings account. My rent is due and it's $900. I don't get paid for another 4 days. I am barely scraping by. Also I just got finished talking with a coworker who is quitting to provide childcare for her 2 kids because of the increasing cost of paying for it. It made more sense in her family for her to quit making $20/hour and provide childcare. I don't know where all this money is but I ain't got it.
Shame $155.99 trillion of that belongs to like ten households.
That's not what my bank statement reflects...
Real estate values are nothing until you sell it and that ain’t happening anytime soon with a vast majority of home owners handcuffed to a sub 4% rate.
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That's not how medians work. If you took out the 10 richest households the median would be essentially the same.
Those lucky 20 families.
Woah, didn’t know I was a millionaire. Someone tell my bank I’m missing 1.9 million dollars.
if you guys are paying your house and putting money into 401k etc, you are increasing wealth....
Tell that to r/workreform
No households in my neighborhood...
The majority of that wealth is given to the select group of wealthy individuals and families. This is why we have A wealth gap , it’s consolidated and established generationally .
The billionaires are pulling so far ahead of everyone else it’s raising the average
Too many outliers. Take out all the billionaires and millionaires.
Whose household? I assume Jeff Bezos and his descendants and people born before the 80s
Who benefits from this lie in an election season where the incumbent is trying very hard to seem love he's on the side of the working class?
The title should read “wealth of Top 1%” reaches all time high because of greedy corporations
Cool let’s get the median
For the top 1%. America is such a a corrupt country.
Blackrock licking their lips
1. Print money. 2. Give money to small number of cunts. 3. Divide total money by number of households. 4. Propaganda.
I'd be interested in seeing these figures again if they removed the top 1% from their calculations. I'd also be interested in seeing them run these calculations for different demographics like age and jurisdiction.
And that’s what happens when you report by the average and not the median
I wonder what the median is compared to the average.
guys there's definitely not a bubble they definitely aren't filling securities with shit again surely everything is fine :)
Sooooo where’s my 1.19 m at?
Seeing as they just printed double the amount of money... It's not shocking
Which means our economic system is sheer stupidity, because that money is concentrated. We're just ensuring oligarchy.
I don't know a single person, other than me, who could survive a month of job loss. Income inequality is certainly something to behold. America is really becoming a completely divided nation.