1 in 21 New Yorkers Is A Millionaire, & More Fun Facts About The Rich!

“A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool?” Ugh, “cool” inflation. I still think a million dollars is cool, and this article full of fun facts about millionaires is cool too. For instance!

Millionaires live in Maryland.

Maryland has more millionaires per capita than any other state — 7.7% of all households — according to the Phoenix Global Wealth Monitor. New Jersey, Connecticut, and Hawaii are also packed with millionaires, and oil-rich North Dakota is gaining fast, jumping from No. 43 to No. 29 in the 50-state ranking in one year.

I was a little surprised by that, to be honest, since I grew up visiting friends and going to school in Maryland; aside from individual enclaves like Potomac and Annapolis, it’s not an ostentatious place.

New York has more millionaires per capita than almost any other city in the world: 1 in 21 residents makes the cut. No doubt the city only come in fourth — behind Geneva, Zurich, and Monaco — because the survey takes into account the entire sprawling mass of the five boroughs. If Manhattan alone were considered, I’ll bet it would have more millionaires per capita than anywhere else. And it’s only going to get worse:

The New York Post reports, “New York’s millionaire population is forecast to grow 31 percent by 2023, rising from 389,100 to 508,100, according to research firm WealthInsight.” Cool!

In case you were curious, the city of Houston, TX, has the second highest proportion of millionaires in the US, behind NYC: “Houston, Texas, was ranked as second highest in America with 2.09% of the city’s population being considered millionaires. Houston ranked as number 18 on a global basis.” At least as of last year. Perhaps San Francisco (ranked 3rd in 2014) will overtake it in the near future.

Sorry, Dallas.

Canada’s millionaire capital is Toronto, which isn’t too surprising; every Canadian I’ve met lately is from there, and every piece of Canadian apocalyptic literature I’ve read lately takes place there. I guess there’s something about the preponderance of the rich that makes writers want to burn the place down.

In terms of pure numbers, here’s where the worlds super-rich are concentrated:

Tokyo tops the list with 461,000 millionaires at the end of 2012, followed by New York City with 389,000. London and Paris take third and fourth place respectively with Frankfurt, Beijing, Osaka, Hong Kong and Shanghai making up the the remainder of the top ten. Interestingly the second highest city for billionaires, Moscow, comes in 20th for its number of millionaires. …

Now for the big players, those individuals with over $30m each. London is top of the list as the city with the most multi-millionaires (4,224) but Tokyo and Singapore follow in second and third place respectively.

New York makes an appearance at fourth place on the rankings — but if you’re surprised by the Big Apple’s slip down the rich list, WealthInsight do point out that ‘many wealthy New Yorkers live off the Island in cities such as Greenwich which has over 350 multi-millionaires on its own’.

New York (Manhattan) contains the most billionaires according to the release with 70 in the city. Moscow has 64 billionaires and London boasts 54.

More fun facts about regular old domestic millionaires:

Millionaires are running our government. “At least 268 members of the House and Senate are worth $1 million or more.”

They’re often spenders rather than savers: “millionaires saved only 14% a year on average.”

They did not all go to college. “85% of millionaires have college degrees. Another 12% attended college and dropped out. On the other hand, 31% earned an advanced degree.”

They really like Home Depot. “About 57% of millionaires worth more than $5 million say they shop at Home Depot all the time, according to the Spectrem Group. Other favorites include Costco, Lowe’s, and Target. Only 8% say they regularly shop at Neiman Marcus.”

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.