An annual report from the consulting company, Capgemini, about the wealthy in the world was just released. Interesting stuff. They make estimates of the number of millionaires (excluding housing) and ultramillionaires. (all numbers here are real dollars, i.e., corrected for inflation)
For me, the fascination in these numbers is their pattern of growth. This is hard to measure, but two estimates are available from this company and they agree. One estimate is to simply average the recent growth of the number of millionaires (having the advantage of using a fixed methods and definitions). Over the last couple of years that average is a 7%. The other way is to look at the growth of the total wealth of the wealthy. Here, future growth is easier to estimate since this is among the consultant's specialties and they have access to (private) data. They estimate that wealth will grow about 8% per year over the near future, which also produces a estimate of about 7% for the increase in millionaires (based on past history which suggests millionaire number in the US grows slightly more slowly that total wealth of the wealthy).
There is little agreement on the number of U.S. millionaires, partly because the data are not good and partly because it depending upon definitions. Reasonable estimates range from 1% to 4% of the population. Nonetheless, what is clear is that a 7% growth in the number of millionaires (which causes a doubling in 10 years) applied several times is a tremendous program to eliminate material hardship. Could the median U.S. household have a worth of a million in 2050?
Across the world, the economic growth of China and India has been, by far, THE success story in alleviating world poverty. In the U.S., economic growth will have massive, human benefits too. Millionaire status does not provide opulence, but it's not a bad start or average.
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