affluent spending behaviors

Is The Recession Over? New Affluent Survey Stats May Provide Clues

Filed under: Wealth

Many books, much research, a lot of time and effort have been written about the spending attitudes of the high and ultra high net worth population, mainly because of the challenge they consistently present: they are an elusive group, as they would prefer to remain relatively anonymous. However, the American Affluence Research Center's work stands out in defining the attitudes and behaviors of this group, as their stringent quantitative methods produce cutting edge results. One ( of many) is -- though there is pessimism about the economy, affluent people are still buying luxury commodities. Go figure!

The most recent Affluent Market Tracking Study #17 was released on April 15, 2010, It is an independent report, not funded by any marketing group, club, or project that would lend possible bias to the data collection methods, questions or answers.

The Center publishes two direct mail surveys a year, each year, spring and fall. Those who are chosen to respond are subjects chosen at random to be representative of the precisely defined population of affluent households, consistent with the research done by the Federal Reserve Board. Over 690 responses were received, and the survey results were based on 525 men and women who promptly responded and met the minimum net worth requirement. The net worth categories on the questionnaire conform to those used by the Federal Reserve Board to define the wealthiest 10%, 5% and 1% of US households. This demographic has the following in common:

* A minimum net worth of $828,000
* Has an average net worth of $3.1M
* Has an average income of $256,000
* Earns 36% of the total income of all Americans
* Owns 63%of the personal assets of all US households
* Holds 89% of the total value of all publicly traded stock and mutual funds in the US
* Owns a primary residence valued at over $651,000.

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