The U.S. Added 441,000 Millionaires Last Year, While the Typical American Got 20% Poorer
America minted more millionaires last year than any other country on Earth, yet the typical household quietly lost ground at the same time. The same economy, the same five years, and two stories that together reveal a structural fault line…
Two things happened in the American economy over the same five years, and both are true. The United States minted 441,078 new dollar millionaires in 2025 alone, more than 1,200 a day, nearly half of every new millionaire created on Earth, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2026. And since 2020, the wealth of the typical American household has fallen almost 20% in real terms. Same economy, same five years, opposite outcomes.
Average vs. Median: The Idea That Unlocks Everything
Average wealth divides all the wealth in a country by the number of people. It is exquisitely sensitive to the top: if one billionaire’s net worth jumps by $100 billion, the “average American” gets richer on paper even if everyone else stays exactly the same.
Median wealth describes the household sitting in the exact middle, half of Americans above and half below. It ignores extremes and reflects what life actually looks like for a typical family. The gap between those two numbers is the story of the modern American economy in a single comparison.
Per UBS, since 2020, average wealth per US adult rose nearly 10%, while median wealth fell almost 20% once inflation is counted. That is a precise mathematical description of gains so concentrated at the top that they lift the national average while the middle slides backward.
The Full Picture
The US now holds 23.6 million millionaires, over 40% of the global total of 57.5 million, and controls 35.7% of all personal wealth UBS tracks worldwide. Global personal wealth rose 10.8% in 2025, the fastest pace in at least three years. Yet UBS found that median wealth declined in most of the 56 markets it studied, a pattern it described as evidence of a growing divide between the wealthiest and the broader population. The US wealth Gini coefficient sits at 0.77, the sixth-highest of those 56 markets.
In Q3 2025, the top 1% of US households owned 31.7% of all US wealth, the highest share since the Federal Reserve began tracking the data in 1989. In dollar terms, that group held roughly $55 trillion in assets, about equal to the combined wealth of the entire bottom 90% of Americans. As Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi put it: “Household wealth is highly concentrated and becoming steadily more concentrated.”
Four Structural Forces
Stocks: Per Gallup, 87% of adults in households earning $100,000 or more own stock, compared with just 28% of those earning under $50,000. The S&P 500 posted a roughly 16% price gain in 2025, and those returns flowed overwhelmingly to the top. The wealthiest 1% of Americans hold about 50% of all corporate equities and mutual fund shares, worth approximately $27.6 trillion as of Q1 2026 per the Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts. The top 10% together control more than 87% of all US equity wealth, meaning a bull market year enriches a narrow slice of the population while leaving most households largely on the sidelines.
Housing: Middle-income families hold most of their wealth in their homes. The Case-Shiller National Home Price Index sat at 332.7 in April 2026, barely above its January 2026 reading of 326.7, while equities surged. Homeowners gained shelter but little additional net worth during the stretch when the stock market delivered its largest returns.
Inflation: The Consumer Price Index reached 333.952 in June 2026, up from 322.561 a year earlier. Food, energy, and healthcare consume a disproportionate share of a middle-income budget, which means inflation at that level hits typical households harder than it hits wealthy ones, whose spending on necessities is a smaller fraction of total income.
Wages: Real average hourly earnings sat at $11.32 in June 2026, essentially flat versus $11.31 a year earlier. Per Bank of America, higher earners saw 3% wage growth in December 2025, while middle-income households got 1.5% and low-income households got just 1.1%. Wages, like asset returns, are concentrating at the top.
A 40-Year Bipartisan Trend
Wealth concentration has accelerated under administrations of both parties. In 1982, the minimum net worth to make the Forbes 400 was $250 million in today’s dollars. In 2025 it was $3.8 billion, a 15x rise. Economist Paul Krugman found today’s 15 richest Americans hold 1.65% of all US wealth, versus 0.77% for the top five in 1918, a level of concentration that exceeds the Gilded Age.
The mood among typical households reflects this squeeze. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment index hit a historic low of 44.8 in May 2026, more than 20% below its reading of a year earlier, as consumers cited high prices eroding personal finances. June brought a partial recovery to 49.5 as gas prices eased, but sentiment remained 13% below its February 2026 level and nearly 20% below a year ago. Separately, the personal savings rate stood at 4.0% in Q1 2026, down from 6.2% in Q1 2024, a sign that households are drawing down buffers to maintain spending rather than building the financial cushion that enables long-term investing.
What the Typical American Can Do
The dividing line between the 441,000 and everyone else is mostly one thing: stock market participation. A household that invested consistently in broad index funds from 2020 through 2025 captured the average gain. A household holding cash or with wealth locked in a home lived the median decline.
In 2026, 401(k) contribution limits are $24,500, or $32,500 for those 50 and up. An employer match is among the highest-return uses of capital available to most working Americans, and unclaimed matches represent forgone compensation for middle-income households. As UBS warns, “outcomes will increasingly depend on access to investable assets and the ability to diversify, shaping how widely future gains will be shared.” The chasm between the 441,000 and the typical American is a function of access, and access starts with a decision.
Editor’s note: This update corrects the S&P 500’s 2025 price return from 16.64% to approximately 16%, updates the Q1 2026 personal savings rate from 3.9% to 4.0% per BEA data, adds the Federal Reserve’s Q1 2026 figure showing the top 1% holds roughly $27.6 trillion in equities, incorporates the June 2026 partial rebound in University of Michigan consumer sentiment to 49.5, and clarifies the Gallup stock ownership statistic to reflect that 87% of households earning $100,000 or more own stock.
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I've spent more than 15 years inside enterprise software, working alongside the finance, sales operations, and HR leaders who run the revenue engines at some of the largest tech companies in the country.
My day job is helping enterprise executives make smarter decisions about retention, compensation, and growth. These are the same operational levers that show up in every earnings report investors actually read. That perspective shapes my writing for 24/7 Wall St.
The headline numbers are easy. The interesting stuff is underneath: how companies make money, what executives are worried about, and what any of it means for the person checking their 401(k) on a Sunday afternoon. I write about personal finance and business as someone who has spent her career inside the rooms where these decisions get made.
