The Millionaire Migration: Shifting Wealth in America

A wealth report published by Henley & Partners turns its focus to the shifting landscape of affluence in the United States, and it mentions not only the conventional strongholds for wealth, like New York City, but also emerging destinations with increasing numbers of millionaire residents.

The report shows that the US is home to the largest millionaire population in the world—about 5.5 million people with such worth. The country is also home to close to 10,000 individuals whose fortunes stand at more than $100 million and nearly 800 billionaires adding texture to its economic tapestry.

The opulent New York City perennially retains its crown as the millionaire capital, harboring 349,500 millionaires that make up about 7% of the nation’s millionaire population. But one interesting finding of the report observes a trend it calls “the millionaire remix,” in which rich residents are now moving to alternative locations such as Austin and West Palm Beach.

And the Bay Area, with heavyweights such as Google and Facebook, trails close behind at an estimated 305,700 millionaires as of December 2023—a staggering 82% more than in just the past decade. Money flows alongside hosting giants like Google and PayPal, with some 70 billionaires calling Silicon Valley home.

Among other cities in the world and behind New York and Tokyo, the city of dreams in Los Angeles with a silver screen ranks third in the list with about 212.1 thousand millionaires. Meanwhile, Chicago has an amount of 120.5 thousand millionaires, though this pace of growth is much slower than other cities.

Houston, the largest Texas city, rounds out the top five at almost 91,000 millionaires, up about 70% over the past decade. The other cities on the list include Dallas, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Austin, and Washington, D.C., all being large hubs of millionaires, showing just how much the balance in the distribution of wealth is shifting over the American landscape.

It indicates the concentration of wealth in established financial and cultural hubs, but also an emerging attraction to an increasing number of places, with it being quite indicative of a broader trend in the redistribution of wealth and economic dynamism across America.