Mercer Island, a rich enclave just outside Seattle.
Danita Delimont | Gallo Images Roots RF Collection | Getty images
A version of this article appeared for the first time in Inside Wealth Newsletter of CNBC with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the investor and consumer with high shuttle. Register To receive future editions, directly in your reception box.
The United States houses the most millionaires from all countries, with a count of 23.8 million in 2024, according to a new UBS report. The Swiss Bank said the United States struck some 379,000 new millionaires last year, more than a thousand each day, for an increase of 1.5%.
Continental China finished second with 6.3 million, up 2.3%, with 141,000 new millionaires. As a percentage, the millionaire population of Turkey increased the most with a bump of 8.4% to 87,000.
America has extended its advance thanks to a record year for Wall Street as well as a stable US dollar. The first six months of 2025, however, were difficult. The fears of the trade war and the recession of President Donald Trump disrupted the markets and weighed on the dollar, which is down approximately 9% this year.
UBS economist James Mazeau told CNBC that he was too early to say if the wealth of American households would increase at a slower pace this year. According to Mazeau, a lower dollar stimulates the growth of wealth in countries with non-dollar currencies rather than blocking it in the United States. But he also said that American real estate was resilient and that American actions could end the year slightly higher than where they are now.
“This year could be lower than that of last year, but that does not mean that we will have a reversal of makeshift and that we will see a creation of negative wealth,” he said. “I don’t think growth engines have died in the United States – far from it.”
While almost 40% of world millionaires are based in the United States, Luxembourg and Switzerland have higher wealth concentrations. In both countries, more than one in seven adults are worth at least $ 1 million, according to UBS.
The world’s millionaire population has increased by more than 684,000 to around 60 million, due to the increase in real estate values. However, this growth was geographically disparate, some countries losing their share. Japan, for example, has lost 33,000 millionaires with its population in narrowing.
The billionaire count increased modestly to 2,891, but Mazeau noted that there was a high turnover. The billionaires have lost wealth on 15 of the 56 markets in the UBS sample, with the strongest decreases in the Netherlands and Uruguay. Singapore, Qatar, Greece and Poland have recorded the highest gains.
“There may be great makeshift reversals even in this segment,” he said.
Even among the richest people in the world,, Wealth is concentrated upwards.
UBS estimates that some 60 million people have 226.47 billions of combined dollars, almost half of the world’s world wealth. Within this group are 2,860 billionaires which represent $ 15.7 billions of assets. And at the top,, 15 centillionaries, less than 1% of the group, offer a combined net value of 2.4 billions of dollars.
“We see that there is a concentration of wealth or, I would say, inequalities of wealth, even among the billionaires,” said Mazeau. It has allocated most of the concentration to the outperformance of the technological sector and to the rise of “mega technological entrepreneurs”.
There is not much data on individuals in the range of $ 50 million to $ 1 billion, which deforms the table, according to Mazeau. He also said that the growth of wealth between intermediate and lower wealth supports was underestimated. For example, the number of people with one million to $ 5 million, which UBS doubles “millionaires of everyday”, has more than quadrupled from 2000 to around 52 million.
“They have more wealth collectively than all billionaires in the world,” he said. “It is often overlooked how wealth is increasing and heading for the middle of the peloton.”