Only 36% of American millionaires consider themselves wealthy in 2025, according to new research from Northwestern Mutual.
The finding comes from the 2025 Planning & Progress Study, updated in early November. It draws on a Harris Poll survey of 4,626 Americans, including 969 people with household investable assets greater than $1 million.
Even the wealthiest Americans worry about money, the study found. They fret about having enough of it, deciding how to spend it and whether to pass it on to heirs.
“There’s no definitive number,” said Mark Mascarenhas, a private wealth adviser with Northwestern Mutual’s Haven Wealth Advisors.
Feeling wealthy has a lot to do with context and perspective, he said.
A million dollars might go a long way in West Virginia or rural Kansas. In New York or Los Angeles, it might not feel like nearly enough.
A millionaire who hangs out with other millionaires is bound to make unflattering comparisons to wealthier friends.
“All of my clients who are millionaires do not consider themselves wealthy, not by a long shot,” Liz Windisch, a certified financial planner in Denver.
“People with that much money inevitably spend time with other people who are millionaires, and who have even more money than they do and – just like the rest of us – compare themselves to others who have more,” she said.
Nearly half of U.S. millionaires say their financial planning “needs improvement,” Northwestern Mutual found. Only 53% said they expect to leave an inheritance or charitable gift.
“It’s not that they don’t want to leave an inheritance. It’s just that they’re worried about funding their own retirement,” Mascarenhas said.
The top retirement concern for millionaires, the study found, is the prospect of outliving their savings.
America added 1,000 millionaires a day in 2024, UBS reports.
The United States is home to nearly 24 million millionaires, the largest number of any nation in U.S. dollar terms, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report.
The number of American millionaires grew by more than 1,000 a day in 2024, UBS reports. Millionaires have become so common, in fact, that the report terms them “everyday millionaires” if they have assets of $5 million or less.
Household wealth swelled at a record pace during the pandemic. Surging home values and rising stock ownership fed the surge.
Average household net worth now tops $500,000 for Americans in their late 30s. For late-40-somethings, it exceeds $750,000. For 50-somethings, it reaches seven figures.
But if you’re a 50-something and not a millionaire, don’t despair. Those numbers are averages, inflated by the super-rich.
In a recent Charles Schwab survey, Americans said it takes $2.3 million to be wealthy.
Whatever else “wealthy” might mean in late 2025, surveys attest, it means having a net worth over $1 million. In the latest Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey, released in July, consumers set the wealth bar at $2.3 million.
It may be mostly semantics, but American consumers see a big difference between the financial goals of comfort and wealth.
To Rob Williams, managing director of financial planning at Schwab, the distinction boils down to needs, wants and wishes. To many Americans, Williams said, financial comfort means having enough money to meet your needs and wants. To be wealthy means you have enough to satisfy needs and wants, and also wishes.
To other financial experts, “wealth” simply means freedom.
“I believe that the ultimate measure of success is if you control how you spend your time,” said Michelle Crumm, a certified financial planner in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Is the American dream attainable? The dream is still alive for many people.
Inflation has diminished the currency of the American millionaire. It has also raised the cost of achieving the American dream.
It now costs $5 million over a lifetime to fund eight components of the American dream, including homeownership and parenting, according to a September report from Investopedia.
Here are the lifetime costs:
Retirement: $1.6 million
Owning a home: $957,594
Owning new cars: $900,346
Raising two children and paying for college: $876,092
That’s the takeaway from a recent Harris poll, which suggests many six-figure earners feel far from wealthy.
One in 3 six-figure earners described themselves as financially distressed. Two in 3 said six-figure pay is not a sign of wealth. The survey, released Nov. 14, reached 2,109 Americans.
Three-quarters of six-figure earners said they had used a credit card recently because they were short of cash.
“People used to feel when you got to six figures or above that it was a sign of financial stability,” said Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer and futurist at The Harris Poll, speaking to USA TODAY earlier in November. “And now we just see that as a sign of surviving, and being in survival mode.”
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