The Rich Got Richer: US Added 736,000 Millionaires While 88 Million Americans Say They're 'In Crisis'

The United States minted 736,000 new millionaires last year — the most of any country — even as 88 million Americans say their finances are 'struggling' or 'in crisis', two reports released in the same week found.

Capgemini's World Wealth Report 2026, published on 4 June, put total US millionaire ranks at a record 8.7 million, the highest figure in the three decades the consulting firm has tracked global wealth, CBS News noted.

Separately, Ramsey Solutions' State of Personal Finance study, released on 3 June, found that 34% of US adults now describe themselves as financially distressed, up from 22% when the firm began its quarterly tracking in January 2021.

Wall Street Gains Widened the Divide

The S&P 500 gained roughly 18% in 2025. The Nasdaq Composite climbed about 21%. Wealthy Americans increased their equity allocations from 22% to 27% of their portfolios, compounding the rally's effect. Millionaire wealth, as Capgemini defines it, is measured by investable assets excluding primary residences, collectibles, and consumer goods.

Those without market exposure saw none of it. More than half of Americans, 54%, now live paycheck to paycheck, up from 42% five years ago, the Ramsey Solutions study found. Nearly half, 48%, struggle to cover monthly bills.

Daily money worries affect 53 per cent of the population, compared with 44 per cent in 2021. Among renters specifically, 54 per cent said they have difficulty making monthly payments.

Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok identified the split in a 6 May blog post. Households earning below $50,000 (£37,800) a year are increasingly pessimistic, he wrote, while those above $100,000 (£75,600) feel more confident — a gap he attributed to lower-income families bearing the brunt of rising fuel and food costs.

'The numbers are sobering. More Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to cover basic bills than when we started tracking this in 2021,' said George Kamel, personal finance expert and co-host of The Ramsey Show. 'But buried in that same data is something worth paying attention to: People are making better choices. Budgeting is up. Credit card dependence is down.'

Ultra-Wealthy Outpace Ordinary Millionaires

Globally, the millionaire population grew by nearly two million to 25.3 million in 2025. Total high-net-worth individual wealth rose 8.7% to a record $98.3 trillion (£74.3 trillion), CNBC found.

The ultra-wealthy did even better. Those holding $30 million (£22.7 million) or more in investable assets expanded by 9.4%, making them the fastest-growing wealth segment for a second consecutive year. That group represents just 1% of the world's millionaires but controls roughly 35% of all millionaire wealth.

Gareth Wilson, global banking industry lead at Capgemini, said one reason the ultra-rich are pulling ahead is their access to higher-returning private investments such as private equity.

Optimism Persists Despite Financial Strain

Not all the data pointed downward. Budgeting rates climbed to 47% in 2026, up from 39% five years earlier. Gen Z recorded the sharpest decline in credit card usage of any generation in the Ramsey Solutions survey.

About half of Americans still lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, leaving them without the buffer of rising investment wealth.

Homeowners fared somewhat better: mortgage-payment struggles declined from 43% in 2021 to 38% in 2026, the Ramsey Solutions data showed. Federal Reserve data from 2022 showed homeowners had an average net worth of $1.5 million (£1.13 million), compared with $154,000 (£116,000) for renters.

Financial services group Empower found that Americans now believe they need $5.3 million (£4 million) to consider themselves 'financially successful'.

Three-quarters of US adults, 74%, told Ramsey Solutions they expect to be better off financially within five years. Whether the market keeps delivering is a different question.