Millionaires multiply across the US, but most find it's not all mansions and champagne

[TheProle]

A surging number of everyday Americans now boast a seven-figure net worth once the domain of celebrities and CEOs. But as the ranks of millionaires grow fatter, the significance of the status is shifting alongside perceptions of what it takes to be truly rich.

“Millionaire used to sound like Rich Uncle Pennybags in a top hat,” says Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors, a wealth management firm in El Segundo, California. “It’s no longer a backstage pass to palatial estates and caviar bumps. It’s the new mass-affluent middleweight class, financially secure but two zeros short of private-jet territory.”

Inflation, ballooning home values and a decades-long push into stock markets by average investors have lifted millions into millionairehood. A June report from Swiss bank UBS found about one-tenth of American adults are members of the seven-digit club, with 1,000 freshly minted millionaires added daily last year.

https://apnews.com/article/wealth-retirement-millionaire-stocks-homes-inflation-8bc8bf04552feac2625afd6752faa29e

[1WorldHope]

1. The more you have the more you want.

Greed is a very sad disease.

[Mark.b2]

2. I would guess a lot of peoples' 401(k)s get them over $1M...

you start contributing in your 20s and by late 50s, it would be very possible.

[dutch777]

3. In many places in the US, $1 mil in the bank is table stakes for a so so retirement. Luckily there is no more inflation

Ha!

[questionseverything]

4. Most of that million is the equity of the family home

And retirement savings

Not money they can spend w/o downgrading

[Johonny]

6. In El Segundo, without a doubt

It isnt greed, so much as, to buy a house anywhere near your work means a mortgage payment that's most of your salary, then you have student loans, car loans, 401K deferments.

You're a millionaire living pay check to pay check.

[tinrobot]

5. Inflation and home prices eat away at a lot of that.

Someone who bought a normal-sized house in California a decade or two ago might have a million dollars in equity. It doesn't mean the house is suddenly a mansion.

$1M in an 401k/IRA might provide a steady $40K per year towards retirement. Nothing to sneeze at, but by no means "rich".