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Being the biggest rich
capitalist country, the US also has the largest number of wealthy people. Quite
how many will come as a bit of a surprise for those who have heard the ‘1% versus
99%’ slogan; it is not just Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
People might understand wealth
as starting at different levels – a life changing fifty thousand for me might be
just a nice holiday for you. However, a common statistical definition of wealth
is of people with ‘net worth’ – the value of their assets, including housing,
minus their debts, including mortgages – in excess of $1 million.
On this definition, there are
just over 18.6 million US citizens who are wealthy.[1]
That is nearly 6% of the US population, and a higher proportion of the
population if one considers wealthy families, including children.[2]
Of course, a million dollars does not go far these days. But don’t worry, among
this group are people with much more than that: there are three million with
over $5m of wealth, and 1300 people with over $500m.
This accumulation of wealth does
not only finance impressive lifestyles that can be the subject of TV shows and
magazine features. The assets owned will generate an income in addition to any
lucrative employment the wealth holders have, and these funds will form the
basis of investment by financial asset managers, hedge funds and others.
In
that way, the fortunes of many millions of US citizens will be directly bound
up with the prospects for capitalist financial markets, not only in the US but
also around the world. No need to wonder why there is so much political support
for the US military and measures taken against any threat to the capitalist
order. A large, pro-imperialist section of the working class plays a key role in the political outlook too, as Trump will testify, but here is an important material base.
On the population percentage
measure of wealth, the US does not have the highest number in the world. Not every
American is rich, it need hardly be said. A review of other countries suggests
that Switzerland probably tops the table, with 9.5% of its citizens having net
assets of more than $1m. The Netherlands and Denmark have figures between 4%
and 5%, and other countries in Western Europe are generally above 2%, as is Japan.
Dollar Millionaires by Wealth, 2019
Source: Calculated from Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2019
Notably, the ‘Five Eyes’
countries in the Anglosphere group – the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
– each has percentages above 3.5%. They have to have some unifying thing to
talk about and be able to afford the correct attire to attend their nostalgic
parties.
The poor countries of the world
just can’t hack it compared to the rich guys. China, the supposedly great
capitalist power, has a mere 4.4 million people with over $1m of wealth, just 0.3%
of its huge population. They might be commies after all. Russia also has just
0.2% of its population with over a million dollars. So much for state capitalism. Presumably, the other
Russian recipients of looted state assets are keeping a low profile in New
York, London and Cyprus.
Hong Kong, counted separately in
all statistical journals from China, despite belonging to China, better fits
the bill. Its population of just 7.5m includes over 500,000 people with more
than a million dollars and an impressive 153 with more than $500m. The
respective percentages are 6.9% and 0.0021%. The latter number is very small,
but five times that for the US. Taiwan also has 2.2% of its population who have
more than $1m of wealth.
Other poor countries don’t often
get above 0.1% in the millionaire-plus stakes. India, South Africa, Mexico and
Brazil are at 0.1%; Indonesia and Egypt demand an extra decimal place, at 0.04%
and 0.05% respectively, for the percentage of the population who have more than
$1m of wealth.
Perhaps the United Arab Emirates
and Saudi Arabia are the biggest surprises. Despite untold energy wealth, this
has filtered through to an even smaller range of people than you might have
thought. The percentage of millionaire-plus people is higher in the UAE at
1.3%; possibly because there are more royal families to share it with compared
to the total population than is the case for Saudi Arabia, at just 0.4%.
The moral of this story is
clear. If you want to improve your chances of being rich, make sure your
parents come from a rich country.
[1] This wealth
number and the related ones that follow are taken from the Credit Suisse Global
Wealth Report 2019 and the associated databook. Percentages of population
data are calculated using Internet sources for population numbers.
[2] For example,
if a married couple each had more than $1m of wealth, it would make sense to
include their non-adult children in the total of wealthy people.
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