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Here’s How Much Money Americans Think They Need to Be ‘Wealthy’ Today
By Pete Grieve MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
Boomers and Gen Z have very different definitions for what net worth qualifies as rich.
Who qualifies as rich today? The bar for being considered wealthy is shifting, as most people now believe that merely being a millionaire doesn’t cut it.
An annual survey from Charles Schwab asks Americans how much net worth it takes to be wealthy. This year, the average answer was $2.5 million, up from $2.2 million in the last two iterations of the survey.
Older generations and residents of expensive cities like San Francisco had the highest thresholds for what net worth qualified as wealthy. Generally, the survey found significant variance in answers based on age and city of residence.
“‘Wealth’ means different things to different people,” Rob Williams, managing director of financial planning at Charles Schwab, said in a release. But for many Americans, reaching “a certain dollar amount” is a key part of how they think about achieving wealth, he added.
The results of the Schwab survey suggest only a tiny portion of people are rich. If $2.5 million is what it takes to be wealthy, about 2% of Americans actually meet the criteria.
Americans are also somewhat pessimistic about their chances of becoming wealthy. About 10% say they’re wealthy now, and 21% say they’re on track to get there. “Younger Americans, including Millennials and Gen Z, are the most optimistic about being wealthy in their lifetimes (29%),” Schwab said in the release.
It takes a lot less wealth to be considered “financially comfortable,” according to the survey. The average net worth people think it takes to be comfortable is $778,000, which is actually down from a peak last year of about $1 million.
Average net worth it takes to be wealthy, by generation
Here’s how much money each generation says it takes to be wealthy:
- All Americans: $2.5 million
- Boomers: $2.8 million
- Gen X: $2.7 million
- Millennials: $2.2 million
- Gen Z: $1.2 million
Average net worth it takes to be ‘wealthy’ by location
Here’s how much money residents of major cities say it takes to be wealthy:
- San Francisco: $4.4 million
- Southern California: $3.4 million
- New York: $2.9 million
- Washington, D.C.: $2.8 million
- Denver: $2.8 million
- Seattle: $2.8 million
- Boston: $2.7 million
- Atlanta: $2.4 million
- Chicago: $2.3 million
- Houston: $2.3 million
- Phoenix: $2.3 million
- Dallas: $2.2 million
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Pete Grieve is a New York-based reporter who covers personal finance news. At Money, Pete covers trending stories that affect Americans’ wallets on topics including car buying, insurance, housing, credit cards, retirement and taxes. He studied political science and photography at the University of Chicago, where he was editor-in-chief of The Chicago Maroon. Pete began his career as a professional journalist in 2019. Prior to joining Money, he was a health reporter for Spectrum News in Ohio, where he wrote digital stories and appeared on TV to provide coverage to a statewide audience. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times and CNN Politics. Pete received extensive journalism training through Report for America, a nonprofit organization that places reporters in newsrooms to cover underreported issues and communities, and he attended the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in 2021. Pete has discussed his reporting in interviews with outlets including the Columbia Journalism Review and WBEZ (Chicago's NPR station). He’s been a panelist at the Chicago Headline Club’s FOIA Fest and he received the Institute on Political Journalism’s $2,500 Award for Excellence in Collegiate Reporting in 2017. An essay he wrote for Grey City magazine was published in a 2020 book, Remembering J. Z. Smith: A Career and its Consequence.