According to a CNN Money report, 99,504 Harris County household are millionaires. When I saw the figures, I thought they looked a bit high. I dug and found a government statistc that estimates Harris County’s number of households hovers just over 1.2 million. If you do the math, 8.25% of all households in Harris County are millionaire households. Incredible or unbelievable?
The median household net worth was $55,000 in 2000. In 2005, the average millionaire households had a net worth of $2.2 million. According to CNN’s previous survey, a millionaire must have in excess of a million dollars in net worth EXCLUDING the value of the household’s primary residence.
To put the wealth discrepancy in perspective, if the average family makes $55,000 a year and saves every penny of that income under their pillow, it wold take the family 40 years to accumulate the average millionaire’s net worth.
On the other hand, CNN talks about a new class of “Emerging Affluents”:
TNS defines “emerging affluent” as households with a net worth between $100,000 and $500,000, excluding primary residences. This year, they number 24.5 million, up from 23.9 million in 2004.
There are approximately 115 million households in the United States. Thus. about 1 in 5 households are emerging affluent.
Putting together all the statistics, about 1 in 3 households have a net worth of greater than $100,000. Yet, the average net worth is still only $55,000. I’m stunned by the wealth disparity.
