US Millionaire Growth Rate Slackens

Tom Burroughes

13 March 2008

The number of high net worth US households grew by just 2 per cent in 2007 to 9.2 million, the slowest growth rate since 2003, according to a report by Spectrem Group, a US consultancy. While the 9.2 million households with at least $1 million of investable wealth is a record for the number of millionaires, the growth rate has slowed. In 2003, there was no growth at all. The latest increase compares with advances of 8 per cent in 2006, 11 per cent in 2005 and 21 per cent in 2004. Spectrem classes high net worth as comprising $1 million of assets, excluding a primary residence. At the same time, ultra high net worth households - those with investable wealth of $5 million or more – rose by 2 per cent in 2007 to a record figure of 1.16 million – which is the slowest growth since zero in 2002. This represents a significant slowdown from advances of 23 per cent in 2006 and 26 per cent in 2005. "The substantial gains in the number of millionaire and Ultra HNW households we have seen since the end of the dot-com bust has all but ground to halt,” the consultancy said. The report, "Affluent Market Insights 2008," is based primarily on a series of surveys of over 3,000 affluent households, defined as having $500,000 or more in investable assets, conducted throughout 2007 and insights from an online survey of over 2,400 millionaire households conducted in December 2007.