Weekend Reading – Millionaires Everywhere?
Welcome friends to some new Weekend Reading whereby I wonder if there are really millionaires everywhere?
First, some recent reads!
I argued retirement is not dead despite some 60-something author writing as much recently.
And, we just posted our latest retirement income update – money we need and want to spend as well in early retirement.
Weekend Reading – Millionaires Everywhere?
Source: Gettyimages.ca
Ben Carlson’s post from A Wealth of Common Sense caught my eye on this subject:
Quite the stats in the U.S.:
“Fidelity now has nearly 800,000 people with $1 million or more in their 401k plan. Fidelity also has 684,000 customers with $1 million or more in an IRA.”
And…
“UBS data shows there are well over 23 million millionaires in the United States alone. Almost half a million new millionaires were created in 2025. Around the world there were one million entrants into the two-comma club last year.”
The last decade has been kind to Americans and Canadians growing their wealth.
Here at home:
“The average Canadian household’s net worth topped $1 million in 2025, a 37 per cent gain from 2019, but some are still living on the edge despite being technically richer.”
Source: https://financialpost.com/
In terms of sheer numbers, Canada has just over 2.1 million U.S.-dollar millionaires, which is about 5% or so of our population. Mind you, as you might have guessed, a large share of these millionaires are asset-rich and not investment-rich; wealth has been driven much higher with surging real estate prices and related home equity.
Household vs. Individual Net Worth: According to Statistics Canada, the average net worth of a Canadian household recently topped $1.08 million, though the median household net worth sits much lower (around $520,000), showing that high averages are pulled up by top earners.
Further: the top 1% of Canadian economic families hold 24% of the country’s total net wealth and the top 10% hold 53% of it, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s (PBO) 2023 high-net-worth families database.
I suspect that stat in 2026 is now higher…
This brings up the subject of extreme wealth concentration that is increasingly receiving political attention in Canada and around the world.
- There are an estimated 86 billionaire families in Canada, with the greatest number living in Ontario (38).
- There are 3,380 families in Canada with at least $100 million in wealth, with the greatest number living in Ontario (1,570).
- Conversely, while just 3,380 Canadian families have accumulated at least $100 million in wealth each, a staggering 4.4 million people lived in families below the poverty line, with the greatest number living in Ontario (over 1.9 million).
Extreme wealth concentration is a growing problem not because it allows just a few people to live the lives of significant luxury, but because of the extreme concentration of power that can go with it. Wealth concentration reflects societal opportunities for the select few and reflects the massive inequalities and therefore lack of opportunities for everyone else not in the 1%.
If you are rich and wealthy these days, you should consider yourself lucky – although you may have worked very hard to get there. There are more rich people today than ever before. Yet wealth inequality is a real problem as the rich keep getting richer because they own the majority of the financial assets, and control the associated political and economic decision-making power that goes along with it.
Some wealth is good for most, too much wealth in too few hands is very problematic.
I welcome your thoughts on this subject, anytime.
More Weekend Reading – Beyond Millionaires Everywhere?
You might be interested in these case studies related to retirement income planning, even if you’re not a millionaire and/or you do not have millions invested but wish to retire.
And…
Stay well and stay invested.
Mark
