[extropy-chat] millionaires in America

[Robert Lindauer]

Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 12:12 PM 7/28/2005 -0700, J. Andrew Rogers wrote:
>
>
>> Around 3.5% of households in the
>> US are millionaire households, and only around an average of 10% of the
>> total wealth of those households is in their house -- these are not real
>> estate bubble millionaires.  Most own their own small businesses.
>>
>> According to the most commonly cited sources, 80% of millionaires are 
>> "first
>> generation", meaning that they do not come from wealthy families.  
>> Another
>> 10% or so have wealth in the family, but never received any financial
>> support from the family and bootstrapped their own wealth.  The 
>> remaining
>> 10% became millionaires via windfalls from various sources, including
>> inheritance.
>
>
> In other words, if I've done my add-ups right, for every millionaire 
> household that produces at least one millionaire offspring, it takes 
> 110 poorer households to produce one. I think this was the ratio 
> Robbie was looking for.



It's definitely statistically significant.  I wonder if they've done 
other studies on the children of millionaires to see if they're 10% 
smarter, harder working and more driven than 'other people'.

Robbie Lindauer