Hawaii, Land Of The Millionaires?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jul 14th 2009 at 2:00PM

If you want to hang with the wealthy you might want to head to Hawaii. Phoenix Marketing International has announced the results of their latest study which shows that Hawaii remains the state with the largest percentage of millionaires per the overall population. In the Aloha State as in most everywhere else, the amount of millionaires has diminished over the past year. They led the list last year with 7.26 percent of the population and continue to dominate in 2009 with 6.4 percent of Hawaii's households being worth $1 million or more in investable or liquid assets, (excluding sponsored retirement plans and real estate).

The other states in the top five are Maryland (6.3 percent), New Jersey (6.2 percent), and Connecticut (6.2 percent), an order of ranking unchanged since 2008 with Virginia sneaking into the top five at 5.5 percent, displacing Massachusetts which is now in sixth place. Since this list ranks the percentage per population the smaller states have a better shot at making it to the top.

Where can you find the lowest percentage of millionaires? That would be Mississippi which has owned the bottom spot for the past four years and hits a new low this year with 3.06 percentage of the population being millionaires. The state with the most millionaire households is California with 662,735 or 5.28 percent of the population. The complete list is available as a PDF download here.

Another survey recently released looked at wealth distribution by city. The Wall Street Journal reports that the new U.S. Metro Wealth Index by Capgemini (which does the World Wealth Report) showed that Orlando Florida lost 42 percent of its millionaire population last year while Las Vegas lost 38 percent and Phoenix lost 34 percent. It's no coincidence that these towns were also some of the hardest hit in the real estate boom-turned-bust. Millionaires in this survey were defined as those with investible assets of $1 million or more, not including the value of primary residence. Add in the value of the primary residence and these numbers might be even lower.

As with the by-state numbers, those with the biggest populations lost the most millionaires meaning that New York City ranked first, Los Angeles was second and Chicago third in the amount of millionaires lost . The rest of the cities in the top ten were Washington D.C., San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Jose and Houston.

Tags: hawaii, millionaire, millionaires, states with most millionaires, StatesWithMostMillionaires, wealth

Filed under: Wealth

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Zach Jul 15th 2009 5:47PM

Give the price of even modest real estate on the archipelago I'm not surprised.

Dudley Haas Jul 19th 2009 5:49PM

My prune faced wife and I are moving there from Wacko because we enjoy being with "our kind". I just found out the B-9 mole on my 4-head is cantankerous, so I only have a few more weeks to live. Good news is I don;t have to worry about loosing my hair becuase I never had any to begin with. The thing I'm most grateful for in life is having a commode that handles cotta real well.

Daniel Lovejoy Jul 20th 2009 12:33AM

Having millions of dollars is what you need to live here (Hawai'i). Otherwise, you are just surviving.

musician52 Jul 19th 2009 3:27PM

so the wealthy live like that while knowing the rest suffer and are happy and content about it

ADMR Jul 19th 2009 5:10PM

HAPPY and Content ya Know It HOWEVER never Glad about Mass Sufferage unless deserved.

mslou707 Jul 19th 2009 3:48PM

How about they donate some of their money to the economy?

MsLou707@ http://EarningFreeMoney.com

villagianne Jul 19th 2009 6:21PM

They do, it's called more than 50% of their earnings in taxes. I assure you that their children will never be eligible for student loans, scholarships and they will never receive any "stimulus" checks even though they paid for it. They don't drive on the roads any more than anyboby else and their children don't receive any "special" treatment at school. They are the very people paying the bills for the masses. Instead of bitching about the millionaires paying 99% of ALL taxes, you should thank them!

armjoint1 Jul 19th 2009 5:07PM

Daniel Love Joy - That statement is so not true. I also live in Hawaii and am not wealthy but I am frugal and spend my money wisely but still live very comfortably, as many of my friends do as well. As for those that are wealthy, nobody just handed the money over to them they worked very hard for it. As for who they give their money to, is their business and nobody elses. People are poor because of their choices.

echo3000 Jul 19th 2009 8:43PM

I agree, people really do make the choice about their financial well being. Making money really is easy. It's making the decision to do so is the hard part and most will not because they fear change and success. Learn more at www.rescueyourwallet.com

armjoint1 Jul 19th 2009 5:10PM

Dawn Jul 19th 2009 5:40PM

1st generation wealth had to have earned it and deserve every penny because they are working their behinds off in ways others cannot possibly imagine. But the Paris Hiltons, Kim Kardashians, and Nicole Richies of the world--honestly don't earn their wealth except through inheritance and scandal and that paints a very false picture to people who do not know how much it really takes to built wealth.

Martin Keyser Jul 19th 2009 6:39PM

"mslou707
Jul 19th 2009 3:48PM
How about they donate some of their money to the economy?"~~~~I did, thanks to Barney Frank and whoever else thought selling houses to those who couldn't afford them was a good idea. A little over one million dollars to be exact. So, what did you do with it? The only thing it accomplished is now I'm as poor as you.
Insead of brinding the rich down to your level, why don't you work up to their level?

Ed Jul 19th 2009 6:54PM

Obsama will put a stop to this outrage.

marshall Jul 19th 2009 7:28PM

Cant wait till Obama taxes the rich until they have to move next door to me. I always wanted to date a debutante.

marshall Jul 19th 2009 7:30PM

TEST

marshall Jul 19th 2009 7:41PM

Rich Dictionary defines the phrase : Work Hard as, A willingness to rip off widows and orphans; and not give deserved compensation to employees.

lafn Jul 19th 2009 7:58PM

Marshall, I bet Uncle Sam is your daddy, right?

Nancy Jul 19th 2009 8:03PM

What a bunch of whiners. We could all be out working trying to get better, but here we sit wondering why others don't just give us something. As for giving it to the economy, if 600 billion didn't help, nothing will.

Victor Jul 29th 2009 11:46AM

Wow, 6.4% is a lot indeed. Here in Brazil my family has around usd$1.5mi in investible assets(excluding their real state and cars). I bet it accounts for less than 1% of our population, anyway we live a pretty humble life compared to americans, if an american look at us he will say we are just the struggling middle class family.
People may think brazilian life is cheap, true for tourists who buy just food and souvenirs, but actually everything here is insanely expensive because of high taxing, for example we pay usd$120k for an Audi TT Roadster(which should be the R8 price), in US it's just a "measly" $40-$50k.
Here you need to have millions to maintain an average middle class american life style. I've been to US and I must say, americans are blessed. Life in US is just way too easy compared to ours no matter if it's during a major crisis or not, virtually nobody over there earns less than usd$1k/month for a full time job, here $250/month is completely normal, not to say about our higher unemployment rate. Luckly if my business ventures work out soon I'll be able to push my personal assets to at least over usd$3-5mi allowing me to live a better life, I do hope so. What a big rant lol.