Connect with us

Wealth

How Americans Make and Spend Their Money

Published

on

How do you spend your hard-earned money?

Whether you are extremely frugal, or you’re known to indulge in the finer things in life, how you allocate your spending is partially a function of how much cash you have coming in the door.

Simply put, the more income a household generates, the higher the portion that can be spent on items other than the usual necessities (housing, food, clothing, etc), and the more that can be saved or invested for the future.

Earning and Spending, by Income Group

Today’s visuals come to us from Engaging Data, and they use Sankey diagrams to display data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that helps to paint a picture of how different household income groups make and spend their money.

We’ll show you three charts below for the following income groups:

  1. The Average American
  2. The Lowest Income Quintile (Bottom 20%)
  3. The Highest Income Quintile (Highest 20%)

Let’s start by taking a look at the flows of the average American household:

The Average American Household – $53,708 in spending (73% of total income)

The average U.S. household has 2.5 people (1.3 income earners, 0.6 children, and 0.4 seniors)
Average American Household Earnings and Saving

As you can see above the average household generates $73,574 of total inflows, with 84.4% of that coming from salary, and smaller portions coming from social security (11.3%), dividends and property (2.6%), and other income (1.7%).

In terms of money going out, the highest allocation goes to housing (22.1% of spending), while gas and insurance (9.0%), household (7.7%), and vehicles (7.5%) make up the next largest categories.

Interestingly, the average U.S. household also says it is saving just short of $10,000 per year.

The Bottom 20% – $25,525 in spending (100% of total income)

These contain an average of 1.6 people (0.5 income earners, 0.3 children, and 0.4 seniors)

How do the inflows and outflows of the average American household compare to the lowest income quintile?

Here, the top-level statistic tells much of the story, as the poorest income group in America must spend 100% of money coming in to make ends meet. Further, cash comes in from many different sources, showing that there are fewer dependable sources of income for families to rely on.

For expenditures, this group spends the most on housing (24.8% of spending), while other top costs of living include food at home (10.1%), gas and insurance (7.9%), health insurance (6.9%), and household costs (6.9%).

The Highest 20% – $99,639 in spending (53% of total income)

These contain an average of 3.1 people (2.1 income earners, 0.8 children, and 0.2 seniors)

The wealthiest household segment brings in $188,102 in total income on average, with salaries (92.1%) being the top source of inflows.

This group spends just over half of its income, with top expenses being housing (21.6%), vehicles (8.3%), household costs (8.2%), gas and insurance (8.2%), and entertainment (6.9%).

The highest quintile pays just short of $40,000 in federal, state, and local taxes per year, and is also able to contribute roughly $50,000 to savings each year.

Spending Over Time

For a fascinating look at how household spending has changed over time, don’t forget to check out our previous post that charts 75 years of data on how Americans spend money.

Click for Comments

Wealth

Mapped: Where Do the Wealthiest People in the World Live?

There are over 600,000 individuals worldwide with a net worth surpassing $30 million, representing the wealthiest people on the planet. Here’s where they live.

Published

on

A cropped map of the world showing where the wealthiest people live in 2024.

Where Do the Wealthiest People in the World Live?

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Investors didn’t expect 2023 to be the bumper year for returns it ended up being. Despite tightening monetary policies and surging bond yields, equities continued their strong performance (helped hugely by enthusiasm around the potential of artificial intelligence).

This has boosted wealth creation, and the growth of ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) in the world.

We map out where the 600,000+ UHNWIs reside, as of the end 2023. To be categorized as such, a person’s net worth needs to be higher than $30 million. This map uses data from the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2024.

It’s worth noting that some countries that are known hotspots for the wealthy—including Belgium, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Russia—do not have specified numbers in the source report and have not been covered in this map and article.

Ranked: Countries By Number of Ultra Wealthy Individuals

At the top of the ranks, accounting for more than one-third of the wealthiest in the world, the U.S. is home to 225,000 UHNWIs, more than double the number of 99,000 UHNWIs in China.

Together, the world’s two largest economies are home to 50% of the world’s wealthiest.

RankTerritoryUHNWI
Population
YoY Growth% of World
UHNWIs
1🇺🇸 U.S.225,077+7.9%35.9%
2🇨🇳 China98,551+3.3%15.7%
3🇩🇪 Germany29,021+1.1%4.6%
4🇨🇦 Canada27,928+2.0%4.5%
5🇫🇷 France24,941+0.2%4.0%
6🇬🇧 UK23,072+3.1%3.7%
7🇯🇵 Japan21,710+0.3%3.5%
8🇮🇹 Italy15,952+3.8%2.5%
9🇦🇺 Australia15,347+2.9%2.4%
10🇨🇭 Switzerland14,734+5.2%2.4%
11🇮🇳 India13,263+6.1%2.1%
12🇪🇸 Spain10,149+1.7%1.6%
13🇳🇱 Netherlands8,390+0.2%1.3%
14🇹🇼 Taiwan7,640-0.3%1.2%
15🇰🇷 South Korea7,310+5.6%1.2%
16🇭🇰 Hong Kong5,957+2.5%1.0%
17🇸🇬 Singapore4,783+4.0%0.8%
18🇸🇪 Sweden4,125+2.5%0.7%
19🇳🇿 New Zealand2,587+2.9%0.4%
20🇳🇴 Norway2,276+1.1%0.4%
21🇦🇹 Austria2,167+0.3%0.3%
22🇹🇷 Türkiye1,932+9.7%0.3%
23🇮🇪 Ireland1,890+0.4%0.3%
24🇮🇩 Indonesia1,479+4.2%0.2%
25🇫🇮 Finland1,269+4.1%0.2%
26🇹🇭 Thailand889+0.8%0.1%
27🇿🇦 South Africa835-1.3%0.1%
28🇵🇹 Portugal800+3.0%0.1%
29🇲🇾 Malaysia754+4.3%0.1%
30🇻🇳 Vietnam752+2.4%0.1%
N/A🌐 Other51,039+0.1%8.1%
N/A🌍 World626,619+4.2%N/A

Note: The organization uses a dynamic proprietary wealth-sizing model created by their data engineering team to arrive at these figures. Exact numbers may change between different editions of this report.

Ranked third, Germany, has close to 30,000 UHNWIs, following the pattern of the biggest economic powerhouses having the highest share of the wealthy.

This correlation remains generally constant outside the top three as well, even if exact positions aren’t quite maintained:

  • Canada, 10th largest economy, 4th in share of wealthiest people.
  • Australia, 14th largest economy, 9th in wealthiest people.
  • Switzerland, 20th largest economy, 10th in wealthiest people.
  • India, 6th largest economy, 11th in wealthiest people.

Together, these top countries by share of UHNWIs account for 92% of all individuals with a net worth greater than $30 million.

Other countries, not specifically mentioned in the report, have 59,039 UHNWIs, or 8.1% of the world’s total.

Ranked: Regions By Number of Ultra Wealthy Individuals

Unsurprisingly, buoyed by the U.S. and China, North America and Asia are the top two regions by wealthiest individuals.

Europe is close behind Asia however; a reminder of the region’s collective economic might.

RankRegionUHNWI PopulationYoY Growth
1North America253,066+7.2%
2Asia165,442+2.6%
3Europe155,232+1.8%
4Middle East18,790+6.2%
5Oceania17,934+2.9%
6South America13,159-3.6%
7Africa2,996+3.8%

The oil-rich Middle East also outperforms on the wealthy individuals metric and saw the highest YoY growth in the ultra-wealthy after North America.

The world as a whole grew its UHNWI population by 4.2% and only South America saw a contraction in numbers between 2022 and 2023.

Where Does This Data Come From?

Source: Knight Frank Wealth Report 2024.

Note: Some countries that are known hotspots for the wealthy, including Belgium, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Russia have not been specified by the source report, and thus do not appear on this map.

Continue Reading

Subscribe

Popular