Just what DOES it take for Americans to feel rich? Only 8% of millionaires consider themselves affluent, new study shows

Only a very small proportion of millionaires actually feel rich, according to a recent study.

According to a survey by Ameriprise Financial, only 8 percent of Americans with at least $1 million in investable assets consider themselves wealthy. questionnaire of more than 3,000 adults. This amounts to approximately 240 people.

Among millionaires, 31 percent said they considered themselves “middle class,” while 60 percent said they were “upper middle class.”

The findings expose the impact of inflation, higher interest rates and economic uncertainty on the nation’s wealthiest. Fewer Americans – including millionaires – feel confident about their financial position in the current climate.

Ameriprise Financial Advisor Kim Maez shared CNBC: ‘Many people feel squeezed between higher prices and lower asset prices. While it is a necessary part of the economic cycle, it is also uncomfortable.”

Although inflation has cooled from a four-decade high of 9.1 percent last summer, it is still hovering at an annual rate of 3.7 percent in September — well above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.

Fed borrowing costs remain at a 22-year high. The central bank’s relentless interest rate hike campaign has brought interest rates from an all-time low of 0.5 percent in April 2020 to 5.5 percent today.

Last week, billionaire investor Ken Griffin warned that higher headline inflation in the US could last for “decades” and that higher interest rates could become the norm.

This means that many high earners do not feel well.

a Bloomberg A survey from earlier this year found that a quarter of Americans earning more than $175,000 describe themselves as “very poor” or “poor.”

The salary should be enough to put workers in the top 10 percent of U.S. tax filers, yet 25 percent said they felt like they were “getting by, but things are tight.”

And half of the thousand Americans surveyed described themselves as “comfortable” rather than “rich” or “very rich.”

Although inflation has cooled from a four-decade high of 9.1 percent last summer, it is now hovering above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target — at 3.7 percent in September

The Federal Reserve kept interest rates stable between 5.25 and 5.5 percent at its November meeting

According to data from the Census Bureau, the average annual income in the US is $75,203.

However, Bloomberg found that more than half of respondents with a net worth of $500,000 felt like they were “getting by,” and even some millionaires still describe themselves as “poor.”

Meanwhile, some Americans with a net worth of more than $5 million still describe themselves as “very poor,” “poor,” or “getting by.”

The survey shows that even doctors, lawyers and other well-paid professionals – what it calls the “ordinary rich” – do not feel financially confident.

This is despite the fact that they are homeowners and have savings for retirement.

The housing market has also been plagued by rising borrowing costs over the past year, which have just started to fall from their near 8 percent peak in recent weeks.

More than half of respondents said they worry about money, while 25 percent said they don’t think they will be better off financially than their parents.

The survey found that many wealthy Americans had also considered moving to different parts of the country, joining the pandemic exodus from expensive cities to areas with cheaper costs of living and lower taxes.