Who are Ultra-Rich?

Let’s take a closer look at the ultra-rich in the U.S.

The ultra-rich are not the “millionaires next door” – small business owners and retirees who have accumulated their personal wealth slowly or through small inheritances. These rich-but-not-ultra-rich do not have the kind of influence over our nation’s politics or economy that comes with extreme wealth.

The ultra-rich are defined as households with $50 million or more in assets (accumulated wealth) or $3 million or more in annual income. In 2026, they are projected to represent just 0.2 percent of the population, yet control more than 20 percent of the nation’s wealth. There will be 300,000 ultra-rich households in the United States, with a combined wealth of a staggering $40 trillion!

Billionaires make up a small subset of the ultra-rich. There are more than 900 billionaires in the United States today. Without a change in the tax laws, there could be 2000 billionaires in ten years, as well as a few trillionaires!

The degree to which extreme wealth, and with it wealth inequality, is misunderstood by most of us is illustrated in this video.

While some of the ultra-rich are celebrated for their charitable giving, donating a small percentage of accumulated wealth is not the same as paying one’s fair share of taxes. Often, significant donations are made to their own donor-advised funds (DAFs), which have no requirement to distribute the money to nonprofits, or to their own private foundations, which have a meager requirement to distribute 5% of their assets (including administrative costs) while receiving a huge tax deduction for their donations. And all too often these charitable gifts have a personal benefit in addition to huge tax breaks, such as protecting a forest next to one’s ranch, or putting one’s name on a university or hospital building.

Rising real estate prices and global stock prices, along with tax loopholes you could float a yacht through, have allowed the ultra-rich to benefit even as millions of Americans lose jobs, healthcare, life savings, and homes. And current tax laws do little to stop the flow of accumulated wealth to pass from generation to generation. We are facing the prospect of a permanent class of plutocrats.

Unless we do something about it.