Inequality A Contemporary Approach to Race, Class, and Gender

Although the majority of the U.S. population falls into the middle class, it is often the people at the ends of the distribution who attract the most attention. This chapter discusses the top end of the hierarchy: the upper class. The term millionaire is often used to discuss the wealthy, and indeed, having a million dollars has its advantages. You might be surprised, however, to know that about 12 percent of Americans have $1 million or more in net worth. Those who are truly elite – that is, the smaller proportion of households who own the largest fortunes – have much more than a million dollars in wealth. Indeed, as we saw in Chapter 1, the group at the very top of the wealth distribution – the one percent – has at least $8 million in assets. In this chapter, we build on the basic estimates we provided in Chapter 1 and look more closely at who the top households are. If you are interested in learning about how many Americans fall into various wealth categories, you might explore this online tool: https://dqydj.com/how-many-millionaires-decamillionaires-america/