Editor’s Note: Oxford Club readers love Chief Investment Strategist Alexander Green’s simple and level-headed approach to the markets.
Below, he discusses one of his favorite topics: the steps that almost anyone can take to join the “Seven-Figure Club.”
– James Ogletree, Managing Editor
The Federal Reserve has reported that the average net worth of American families now tops $1 million, surging 42% from $749,000 in 2019.
Inflation rose sharply during this period, too.
Yet, even after inflation, real average wealth was up 23%, according to the Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances.
This is something to celebrate. (Perhaps especially if you’re one of these new millionaires.)
Money gives you choices – not least of all the freedom to choose how to live your life.
Yet the Grinch isn’t just a fictional character created by Dr. Seuss. Many are angry about our nation’s rising wealth.
Why? Because prosperity creates inequality. And that’s unfair.
Or is it? Let’s take a closer look at what is happening and why.
That nation’s average household net worth of more than $1 million is skewed by the relatively small number of multimillionaires and billionaires.
About 16 million Americans – just over 12% – have a net worth that exceeds $1 million. Approximately 8 million families are multimillionaires.
These households tend to have higher incomes. They generally earn between $150,000 and $250,000 a year.
Yet millions of families with middle-class incomes have also joined The Seven-Figure Club.
What are they doing that other middle-class families aren’t?
They are being smart about money. That means they are paying down high-interest debt, contributing to an IRA or 401(k), building equity in a home, and earning better-than-average returns in the stock market.
Over the past few years, in particular, Americans accumulated trillions of dollars more than they were on track to save before the pandemic.
COVID-19 relief and stimulus spending – along with a government shutdown that prevented them from blowing it – is one reason.
Savings increased. Interest rates rose. As a result, the total assets in money market funds recently hit a record of nearly $6 trillion.
That’s good news. But only if you were a saver.
Residential real estate continued to rise in value. Also good – but only if you own a home.
Stock prices are considerably higher than they were in 2019.
Still more good news if you’re one of the 61% of Americans who own equities, either directly or through mutual funds and ETFs.
In short, the recent jump in the number of millionaire families had something to do with government largesse.
But it had more to do with personal financial decisions.
Let’s set aside for a moment the families who earn too little to save.
(We should have compassion for these folks.)
Tens of millions of Americans with average or above-average incomes – consumers who splurge on designer brands, drive late-model cars, eat out regularly and treat themselves more than occasionally – made a conscious decision not to save or invest.
Some would say they are reaping what they sowed.
More to the point, they didn’t sow. After all, making fresh investments is like planting seeds.
Just as the tiny acorn turns into a mighty oak, small investments – left alone to compound over years or even decades – will turn an average investor into a millionaire or multimillionaire.
The folks who save and invest get richer. They also leave those who don’t further behind.
But unequal doesn’t necessarily mean unfair.
All that’s needed to become a millionaire – or turn a million-dollar portfolio into a multimillion-dollar fortune – is to work, save, invest and compound.
Yes, it takes discipline and patience.
Yet tens of millions of Americans whose wealth would define them as poor today will one day be rich.
As a young man in my 20s, for example, I had no job security, no savings, no health insurance, no investment portfolio and a net worth of approximately zero.
Looking around at the time, my friends and neighbors were pretty much all in the same boat. Yet that changed over time.
Polls show that my experience was not unusual.
For example, only 1% of families under 35 are millionaires. But that rises dramatically with age.
By ages 55 to 64, more than 1 in 5 families are millionaires. In fact, 11% of those in this age group have a net worth of over $5 million.
Don’t get me wrong. There is still plenty of economic struggle in the U.S.
Yet many of these folks are lacking only direction – and a plan of action.
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