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The myth that the wealthy are wealthy because they inherited their wealth is simply a false narrative. Whatever the reasons for perpetrating this myth, the facts are indisputable – the vast majority of the wealthy in America are first generation rich.
Like most people, I assumed that the wealthy in America were generationally rich, meaning that wealth passed from one generation to the next. I embraced that narrative until I conducted my own study of the rich (Rich Habits Study). In my Study, I interviewed 233 wealthy individuals and found that only 24% had actually inherited their wealth. The other 76% created their wealth.
Of this 76%, 31% came from Poverty while the remaining 45% came from the middle-class.
Thinking my Study was a one-off and not representative of reality, I devoted an enormous amount of time and effort in reading through many studies surrounding wealth creation. Here’s what I found:
- Study by David Lincoln and Jonathan Wai – 18,000 Ulta-Rich/High Net Worth individuals ($30 million or more in net worth) – 87.4% of these Ultra-Rich/High Net Worth individuals came from Poverty or the Middle-Class. Only 12.6% inherited their wealth
- U.S. Trust Insight on Wealth and Worth Survey – This Study focused on wealthy individuals with $3 million or more in Net Investable Assets. Of this 77%, 20% came from Poverty while 57% came from the Middle-Class.
- Wealth X 2015-2016 Census – This Study surveyed 684 High Net Worth individuals and found that 75% came from Poverty (19%) and the Middle-Class (56%)
- PNC Wealth Management Survey (2014) – In this Study, 69% of the wealthy came from Poverty and the Middle-Class, 6% Inherited their wealth and the rest, 29%, were Self-Upper Made Middle-Class individuals who had some help – they inherited some money from their Upper Middle-Class parents and then grew that wealth exponentially.
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