They're Rich but Not Famous -- and They're Suddenly Everywhere -- WSJ

By Rachel Louise Ensign

They're not billionaires, but they're still very, very rich.

The number of Americans worth tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars has boomed in the past few decades, thanks to a rising stock market, lucrative private investments and swelling valuations for small and midsize businesses. This growing class is now a huge force in the economy, driving the demand for everything from lavish hotel rooms to private jet travel.

"The ultrawealthy have grown really substantially," said Owen Zidar, a Princeton economics professor who studies wealth. While some of these people made their money in technology or finance and live on the coasts, many others live outside of the highest-cost areas and own small businesses like car dealerships, he said.

Here is data on the rise of this group. Wealth measures a household's assets, like stocks, bank accounts and home equity, minus liabilities like mortgages, car loans and credit-card debt.

More ultrawealthy people

There are about 430,000 U.S. households worth $30 million or more, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Zidar. Within that, there are about 74,000 worth $100 million or more. Over the past few decades, the growth in the number of very rich households has surpassed general population growth.

The Fed's data runs through 2022 and shows a small dip in some categories of the ultrawealthy in 2019. Many well-off households have further benefited from the big stock market gains of the past few years.

Get rich quick(er)

There are more very rich people in large part because their wealth has grown much faster than everyone else's. Even adjusted for inflation, the wealth of the top 0.1% of households has grown more than 13-fold over the past 50 years, according to Realtime Inequality, a tracker developed by economists Emmanuel Saez, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Gabriel Zucman, a professor at the Paris School of Economics. In this analysis, American families with a net worth of $43 million and higher in 2024 are in the top 0.1%.

The bottom 50% have long struggled to build any wealth at all, but they have made some progress.

Average inflation-adjusted wealth turned negative for this group starting in the mid-1990s and then sank further during the 2008-09 financial crisis and housing collapse. It was only after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which brought stimulus checks and rising home values, that average wealth turned positive for the bottom 50% of households again.

Stocks and businesses

The typical American family leans heavily on homeownership to build their net worth, and homeowners of all wealth levels have benefited from the recent rise in home prices.

Over time, though, the very wealthy have amassed more wealth, in part because they own the kinds of assets that have risen particularly dramatically. They have a lot of stocks, in some cases because they are top employees of publicly traded companies paid partially in shares. Many also own stakes in private businesses.

For the top 0.1%, nearly 72% of their wealth is made up of corporate equities, mutual fund shares and private businesses, according to the Fed. The S&P 500 has more than tripled in the past decade. And many private businesses have seen valuations rise, too.

Boomer wealth boom

Baby boomers collectively have far more wealth than any other living generation. That is largely because they bought homes and stocks decades ago and are benefiting from the long run-up in the values of those assets.

About two-thirds of households worth $30 million and up are headed by boomers, according to an analysis of Fed data by Zidar.

Spending it

Because there are so many more multimillionaires, products and services that cater to this group are also booming. Hermès, Brunello Cucinelli and Ferrari all recently reported strong sales from the richest customers, while some companies that target the merely well-off are facing flagging demand. Since the start of the pandemic, demand has picked up for the most expensive homes and the highest-end travel.

Overall flights on business jets and turboprops are flat from a few years ago, but flights taken on these kinds of planes with fractional ownership, like NetJets, that appeal to the multimillionaire class are up markedly.

Write to Rachel Louise Ensign at Rachel.Ensign@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 24, 2026 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.