The headline number from Northwestern Mutual’s 2025 Planning & Progress Study is one of those statistics that sorts the country into two groups before you finish reading it. One big takeaway is that 74% of American millionaires work with a financial advisor, while just 34% of the general population does. Whether it’s surprising or not, that is a 40-point gap, and it sits inside a larger pattern that makes the difference hard to dismiss as a coincidence.
The gap remains wide and persistent, marking the divide between households that have professional help structuring their finances and those that figure it out on their own. The data in the study suggests that line correlates closely with which group ends up with seven figures.
The Trust Layer Behind the Gap
While advisor usage is the headline, the underlying behavior is wider than that. Accordingly, 93% of millionaires say they have received financial advice from someone, compared with only 78% of the general population. The 15-point spread on the broader question of seeking guidance at all suggests the advisor gap is the end of a longer chain. Wealthier households are more likely to ask, more likely to listen, and more likely to formalize the relationship, which itself is hard to ignore, and the numbers don’t lie.
Northwestern Mutual also found that among millionaires, financial advisors are the most trusted source of financial guidance, ahead of friends, family, and online resources. That ordering matters because it inverts the default for most Americans, who tend to lean first on people in their immediate circle. Trust in a paid professional is itself a learned behavior, and the data shows the wealthy learn it earlier.
The Self-Made Story Complicates the Easy Read
The instinct is to assume millionaires use advisors because they inherited the money and the advisor came with it. The study undercuts that, as 79% of American millionaires describe their net worth as self-made. Only 12% inherited it, and 5% came into it through a windfall.
That distribution reframes the advisor stat as the dominant millionaire profile is someone who built the balance sheet over a working career and brought in professional help along the way. The advisor is part of the process that produced the wealth. That is a different story from the one most readers expect.
What Working With an Advisor Actually Looks Like in the Numbers
The outcomes side of the study is where the gap becomes concrete. Millionaires who work with a financial advisor report higher levels of financial preparation for retirement, expect to retire two years earlier, and feel stronger about their relationships, careers, health, and finances overall than those who do not work with a financial advisor. Two years of earlier retirement is a concrete, measurable difference.
The cross-category confidence finding (relationships, health, careers) suggests something that the financial data alone does not capture. A planning relationship that organizes finances tends to spill over into the rest of the household’s decision-making. That is consistent with how planners describe their work, and the survey numbers align with that description.
Why the Other 66% Are Not Calling
The cohort is also more measured about its own position than the outside view would suggest. Only 36% of millionaires consider themselves wealthy, and 49% say their financial planning needs improvement. That self‑assessment shapes the kinds of questions they ask, because the study shows that their top retirement concerns differ from those of the general population and tend to center on more advanced planning issues rather than basic survival math. The pattern looks like a form of disciplined restlessness, a sense that the plan can always be sharpened, and that ongoing refinement is part of how they stay on track.
This sits within a broader labor market that has continued to provide steady raw material for wealth building. Unemployment has held at 4.3% in recent months, and wages have moved higher over the past two years, with average hourly earnings rising from roughly $34.50 in early 2024 to $37.41 in April 2026.
These figures do not come from the Northwestern Mutual study, but they help explain the environment in which households are making decisions. The wage backdrop is supportive, yet the real separation in outcomes comes from how much of that income ultimately becomes saved and invested capital rather than lifestyle. The opportunity is there, but the difference shows up in how people use it.
What the Data Actually Says
The Northwestern Mutual study documents a correlation, not a causal claim, that hiring an advisor produces a million dollars. The direction of cause and effect is almost certainly bidirectional, as people with more money have more reason and greater capacity to hire an advisor. People who hire an advisor early tend to make decisions that compound.
What the data does show clearly is that the two populations behave differently. The millionaire cohort, mostly self-made, treats professional financial guidance as a default. On the other hand, you have the general population, who are navigating a 4.0% savings rate and 48.9 consumer sentiment, who treat it as optional. The 40-point gap is the visible result of those two postures meeting the same economy.
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