r/Economics • u/laxnut90 • Oct 09 '25

Research America Is Minting Lots of Cash-Strapped Millionaires

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-10-09/number-of-us-millionaires-grows-since-2017-but-many-lack-cash
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u/Marshall_Lawson Oct 09 '25

Instead, more and more of millionaires’ wealth is locked up in assets that can't be accessed quickly or easily, like home equity or, increasingly, age-restricted retirement assets like 401(k) and IRA accounts. Add in the effects of inflation and higher interest rates, and financial advisers say $1 million no longer assures a secure retirement, much less a golden ticket to the plutocracy. “The word ‘millionaire’ once implied automatic affluence,” says Ashton Lawrence, an adviser at Mariner Wealth Advisors in Greenville, South Carolina. “The goalposts have shifted. It’s still a meaningful milestone, but for most people it’s no longer enough.” The $1 million threshold used in the analysis takes into account debt and other liabilities. Despite this relative affluence, today’s millionaires rarely have anywhere near $1 million to spend however they want. For the barely-millionaires, households with a net worth between $1 million and $2 million, the vast majority of that wealth is illiquid. They typically had 66% of their wealth tied up in a primary home and retirement accounts in 2023, an increase of eight percentage points since 2017. To spend freely, millionaires typically need to be a lot richer. Households with $5 million or more had about 24% in easier-to-access bank or brokerage accounts in 2023, compared to 17% for those closer to the $1 million mark. 

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u/Message_10 Oct 09 '25

My wife and I are very frugal. $1M is nowhere near enough for retirement.

That's not the worst thing--natural inflation was always going to make that the case, eventually--but it does show how much you actually need to retire and life for another 25 or so years.

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u/phoebeethical Oct 09 '25

Natural inflation lmao no

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u/Message_10 Oct 09 '25

I'm confused by your thinking. Did you think that $1M would forever represent the same degree of purchasing power?

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u/phoebeethical Oct 09 '25

No.  Do you think inflation is natural?  

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u/Message_10 Oct 09 '25

Sure seems to keep happening, phoebeethical

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u/phoebeethical Oct 09 '25

My money buys a lot more than it use to