Forget Your First Million: Here’s How Much It Really Takes to Be Wealthy, According to Visa’s New Research

Millionaire status ain’t what it used to be. Sure, having a net worth over $1 million may still sound like a goal worth chasing. But according to a new report from Visa, it’s no longer a great benchmark for measuring what affluence actually looks like in America.

Indeed, thanks to strong stock and real estate markets, 1,000 Americans a day reached a net worth of $1 million or more last year, the credit card company reports, bringing the number of millionaires in the U.S. to more than 23 million.

In an effort to better capture what constitutes affluence today,  Visa’s new “Redefining rich” report proposes an alternative benchmark: entry into the top 10 percent of American households. That metric would qualify just over 12 million households as affluent, defined by having a $210,000 annual income or $1.8 million net worth.

“We probably spent a week figuring out, ‘How do we actually define the affluent?’” says Michael Brown, principal U.S. economist at Visa. “We need to be more flexible with our definition, so we use that top 10 percent as the guidepost.”

Thinking about wealth through this new lens also allows you to draw new conclusions about wealthy consumers. For instance, Visa’s team used credit transactions from the past year to identify which categories of spending affluent Americans over-index on relative to their non-affluent peers, and found that the top categories included apparel, airlines, lodging, professional services, restaurants and education.

But affluence isn’t just a numbers game. It’s also location-dependent, because cost-of-living differences mean your dollar will go further in some parts of the country than others.

Consider that prices in California are typically 13 percent higher than the national average, so the report adjusts the “affluence” cutoffs accordingly, to $236,000 in annual income and $2 million in net worth.

Arkansas, meanwhile, is about 13 percent cheaper than the national average, so you’d only need a yearly income of $182,000, or a net worth of $1.6 million, to qualify as affluent there.

Regional dynamics also shape how wealth is distributed in the country—and it may not be where you’d expect. According to Visa’s report, affluence is most concentrated in the South, where there are comparatively lower income and net worth thresholds to enter that upper wealth bracket. That’s left the region with 4 million affluent households and an outsized “affluent spend share” of 33 percent.

“If we’re thinking about how a business is trying to capture market share in an economy that is as dynamic as the U.S. economy, looking at a local definition of the affluent is critically important,” Brown says. “We get into the mindset, especially as economists, that there’s some national definition of an affluent consumer and that they all behave the same way—and this geographic dimension thoroughly debunks that myth.”

There’s also a relationship between geography and age, the report notes, which has further bearing on the texture of American wealth. The South claims the largest share of affluent Boomers and Gen Xers—“the primary drivers of spending”—whereas the Northeast has the highest share of affluent Zoomers, meaning less actual spending by upper-echelon consumers.

“In the South, you’re skewing towards the Boomer population, [which] means that old school advertising techniques work quite well,” Brown notes, citing TV ads and word-of-mouth.

And all generations aren’t made equal, at least when it comes to consumer behavior.

“Baby boomers make up just 12 percent of affluent households, yet they account for 42 percent of affluent spending,” Visa’s report notes. “This outsized influence stems from one key fact: affluent boomers control the bulk of their generation’s $85 trillion-plus in wealth.”

That’s a big difference when you compare them to Gen X-ers, who make up 57 percent of affluent households but only 33 percent of affluent spending. (The report chalks this up to student debt and mortgages as well as the costs of child and elder care.)

Those age groupings sometimes interact with affluence in weird ways: for instance, when it comes to lawn and garden-related purchases.

“If you’re in the non-affluent, lawn and garden equipment spending [tops off] right around age 48. That’s a chore, right?” Brown says. “You’re buying this equipment to try to make your life as easy as possible, given the task. My father falls into this affluent bucket of lawn and garden equipment, and that’s a hobby—and so he has multiple pieces of equipment in order to facilitate his hobby.”

These generational splits are also key to keep in mind as we enter the purchasing-heavy holiday season. Brown notes that America’s aging population means there’s less gift-buying happening than in the past, thanks to fewer children—but adds that the large population of affluent Boomers does give holiday retail something of a boost.

“They have grandchildren,” the economist notes, and “they’re going to spoil them.”

The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.