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Comment by supernooneo | Hacker News Reader

1 in 11 chance of being a millionaire? That must be far too high? Then there would be 31 million millionaires in the country, or about the population of California.

Edit: and then he says 1 in 120 of earning $400k or more... so that does that work with 1 in 11 being a millionaire?

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According to the WSJ[1], there were 3.1 millionaires in the US in 2010. I'm not sure what he means by "in a random year", but perhaps it means that 1/11 people become a millionaire at some point in their life (even if they don't stay one for long)? Or, he's off by a factor of ten (the coincidence of 3.1MM vs 31MM is hard to discount).

Becoming a millionaire doesn't require an annual income of $400k/yr. Most millionaires probably make far less, (150-250k?), and become millionaires from savings over many years.

[1]: http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/06/22/u-s-has-record-number...

"Merrill and Capgemini define millionaires as individuals with $1 million or more in investible assets, not including primary home, collectibles, consumables and consumer durables."

So not including your home, or things you can sell like your car, or collectible ginsu knife set. I guess they do include your self managed IRA though, since that is 'investible.'

Defining 'millionaire' is always dicey depending on who you talk to. In order of strictness:

   $1M or more in adjusted gross income on tax return
   $1M or more in gross income (before adjustments)
   $1M or more in 'liquid' net worth (cash or cash equivalents)
   $1M or more in total net worth.

I know a number of folks who would call themselves a 'millionaire before taxes' which is to say their stock options would give them more than a million dollars when exercised, but since in California you end up withholding 51% for taxes you probably end up with less than a million. There are also folks who bought a house earlier and it has appreciated to be 'worth' more than a million but if they sold it and bought another one they wouldn't want to pay the property taxes on a million dollar house.

And of course a million doesn't go as far as it used to. If you have a couple of kids in elementary school and are planning to pay for their college education, well that's going to be nearly 1/2 million right there depending on school.

Note that there is no dichotomy between more people are millionaires than ones that earn over $400k per year. You can earn $100K per year and invest $20K per year and end up with $1M in savings in 20 years. But it is a long road.

Here’s the source I used: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/chart-of...

Thinking more deeply about this, I’ve adjusted the number to 1 in 15, since almost all kids (~25% of the population) are part of someone else’s household, and so would be counted as “millionaires” even though they had no control over the assets.

Well, I'd imagine most people earning $400K or more in a year are millionaires. Income <> net worth.

Only 5M US millionaires. So math problems somewhere: http://www.cnbc.com/id/47631154

That link is talking about people with $1M in investible assets; I'm guessing the original link is counting people with $1M net worth.

Im guessing author used data like this (http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/02/01/rich-o-meter-20/) which is household, not individual

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