Are you rich? (2024)

Overall net worth autotext will go here

The middle half of Americans have a net worth between $27,000 and $659,000. About 8 percent of households had a negative net worth (they owed more than they owned), while about 1 in 10 holds more than $2 million.

So what counts as rich? That depends on who you ask.

There aren’t solid definitions for a word as loaded as “rich.” Wealth cutoffs for terms like “upper wealth tier” and “high net worth individual” range from $770,800 to more than $2 million.

That’s how you compare to the nation as a whole. But how do you stack up to households like yours?

How your wealth compares to peers

Most people have a low net worth when they are young, accumulate wealth until retirement and then spend it down. Households with college-educated people tend to be wealthier, as are households where spouses or partners live together.

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Tell us more about yourself to see how you compare to others like you.

Your household’s net worth is higher than about NaN percent of households like yours, where the head of the household is aged 50-64, has a college degree and lives with their spouse or partner.

Enter information about yourself to see the racial wealth gap for people like you.

Research suggests that the gap persists even after controlling for age and education because Black and Hispanic people tend to have lower incomes and are less likely to receive familial financial support or invest in the stock market. The persistent Black-White wealth gap is also rooted in slavery, which created a disparity so extreme that researchers estimate it would be nearly impossible to close even if financial opportunities were equal ever since.

How your income fits in

Like wealth, income tends to grow with age before dropping off in retirement. College-educated people also tend to have higher incomes.

[Are you in the American middle class?]

Income and wealth often go hand in hand, but not always. An early career surgeon saddled with student loans may have a high income but low net worth. A nonprofit analyst with a family inheritance may be at the opposite end.

Tell us your income and we’ll tell you how your income and wealth align — and how that compares to peers.

The building blocks of wealth

The makeup of a rich family’s wealth is not the same as a poor family’s wealth, and that matters for financial stability and opportunity.

The wealthier the household, the more likely their assets are making money for them.

Those at the lowest end hold most of their wealth in vehicles, which almost always lose value over time, and cash, which buys less as prices rise.

Homeownership is an iconic part of middle-class American life and the largest asset for Americans in the middle ranks of wealth. Because most homes become more valuable over time, homeownership is also how most Americans build wealth.

However, homeownership doesn’t guarantee financial stability. Mortgages are the largest source of debt for about half of Americans in the middle ranks of wealth, and a home’s value can’t be spent without selling it.

The richest Americans keep their wealth in investments, businesses and other real estate on top of their home — assets that can increase the wealth they already have.

How the wealthiest Americans compare

The typical net worth of American families grew at a record pace between 2019 and 2022, with gains shared among nearly every economic and demographic group in the country.

However, more than a third of private wealth in the United States is still concentrated among the richest 1 percent of households, creating a level of individual net worth that can be difficult to fathom.

The difference between the wealth of someone in the 25th and 75th percentile is large, but that gap is minor when comparing the wealthiest Americans to everyone else.

Your net worth places you in the NaNth percentile of wealth. Here’s what net worth looks like across the range of wealth in America.

A visual comparison of the net worth of households at the 25th percentile ($27K), the 50th percentile ($193K), the 75th percentile ($659K) and the 99.9th percentile ($62 million)