Wealth

Making Billions: The Richest People in the World

Published

3 years ago

April 27, 2020

Dorothy Neufeld

billionaires world's richest people

The Richest People in the World

In the last year, the wealth controlled by the world’s top 10 billionaires has jumped by over $76B.

Even in the teeth of jittery markets, many of the world’s richest people have seen their wealth surge to new heights as COVID-19 unfolds.

Today’s infographic draws data from Forbes Billionaire’s List and shows a broad cross-section of the world’s billionaires – highlighting their stratospheric wealth in the current economic climate.

Wealth in Astonishing Circumstances

The below table shows the fortunes of the world’s 10 richest people, comparing the numbers from March 5, 2019 to the most recent data from April 22, 2020.

Rank	Name	Net Worth 2020*	Net Worth 2019*	Change 2019-2020
#1	Jeff Bezos	$145B	$131B	+$14.1B
#2	Bill Gates	$104B	$97B	+$7.1B
#3	Bernard Arnault & Family	$92B	$76B	+$15.5B
#4	Warren Buffett	$73B	$83B	-$9.1B
#5	Mark Zuckerberg	$69B	$62B	+$6.5B
#6	Larry Ellison	$66B	$63B	+$3.4B
#7	Steve Ballmer	$63B	$41B	+$21.3B
#8	Amancio Ortega	$61B	$63B	-$2.2B
#9	Larry Page	$58B	$51B	+$7.6B
#10	Jim Walton	$57B	$45B	+$12.0B
	Total Change			+$76.2B

Source: Forbes – *As of April 22, 2020 **As of March 5, 2019

Gaining the highest across the top 10 is former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who saw his fortune rise over $21 billion since March 2019.

Facing the steepest losses belong to investing luminary Warren Buffett, whose net worth has dropped over $9 billion over the past year. At year-end 2019 Buffett was a 11% shareholder in Delta Airlines. In April, Buffett sold 13 million shares in the airline.

Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune is holding steady. Amazingly, the Facebook founder still remains one of the world’s youngest billionaires (ranking 22nd out of 2,095) despite first joining the billionaire club a dozen years ago.

Newcomers to the List

As a new decade begins, who are among the most newly-minted billionaires?

Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom has climbed in the ranks as online video communication demand soars. Zoom went public in April 2019 at a stunning $9.2 billion IPO valuation. As of April 24, 2020, Zoom was valued at over $44.3 billion.

Rank	Name	Net Worth	Source of Wealth
#1	Eric Yuan	$7.8B	Zoom
#2	Anthony von Mandl	$3.9B	Mark Anthony Brands
#3	Larry Xiangdong Chen	$3.6B	GSX Techedu
#4	Dmitry Bukhman	$3.1B	Playrix
#5	Igor Bukhman	$3.1B	Playrix
#6	Sun Huaiqing	$3.0B	Guangdong Marubi Biotechnology
#7	Forrest Li	$2.4B	Sea Group
#8	Byju Raveendran	$1.7B	Byju's
#9	Jitse Groen	$1.5B	Takeaway.com
#10	Qian Ying	$1.5B	Muyuan Foods

*As of April 22, 2020

Similarly, Netherland’s Jitse Groen has witnessed his food-delivery company Takeaway.com expand extensively. Takeaway.com currently operates in 11 countries across Europe and received regulatory approval to complete a $7.6 billion merger with JustEat in April.

Forrest Li who runs Sea, an online-gaming and e-commerce company, has similarly joined the ranks. Tencent and private equity firm General Atlantic are among its major stakeholders.

The COVID-19 Response

As the global economy contends with a loss of confidence and job losses, some of the world’s richest people are stepping up to the plate.
Billionaires with COVID-19 donations

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is donating roughly 25% of his net worth to COVID-19 in the form of Square stock, valued at $1B.

His donation, which was placed in a donor-advised fund called Start Small LLC, is more than four times higher than any other billionaire. That said, after the pandemic, Dorsey also stated that this money may also go towards girl’s health and education, as well as universal basic income (UBI).

Rank	Name	COVID-19-Related Donation	% of Net Worth
#1	Jack Dorsey	$1B	25.6%
#2	Bill & Melinda Gates	$255M	0.2%
#3	Azim Premji	$132M	2.2%
#4	Andrew Forrest	$100M+	1.2%+
#5	Jeff Bezos	$100M	0.1%
#6	Michael Dell	$100M	0.4%
#7	Lynn Schusterman, Stacy Schusterman	$70M	2.1%
#8	Amancio Ortega	$68M	0.1%
#9	Nicky Oppenheimer	$54.5M	0.7%
#10	Johann Rupert	$54.5M	1.1%

*As of April 15, 2020

Overall, 77 of the world’s billionaires have made public contributions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, just a fraction of the world’s ultra-rich.

As COVID-19 continues to spread globally, will the world’s billionaires still accumulate wealth at greater speeds, or will a different picture emerge as unconventional policies around the world become increasingly commonplace?

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Wealth

Mapped: How Much Does it Take to be the Top 1% in Each U.S. State?

An annual income anywhere between $360,000-$950,000 can grant entry into the top 1%—depending on where you live in America.

Published

5 days ago

September 25, 2023

Pallavi Rao

A cropped map of the U.S. listing the annual income needed to be in the top 1% in each state.

How Much Does it Take to be the Top 1% in Each U.S. State?

There’s an old saying: everyone thinks that they’re middle-class.

But how many people think, or know, that they really belong to the top 1% in the country?

Data from personal finance advisory services company, SmartAsset, reveals the annual income threshold at which a household can be considered part of the top 1% in their state.

Some states demand a much higher yearly earnings from their residents to be a part of the rarefied league, but which ones are they, and how much does one need to earn to make it to the very top echelon of income?

Ranking U.S. States By Income to Be in the Top 1%

At the top of the list, a household in Connecticut needs to earn nearly $953,000 annually to be part of the one-percenters. This is the highest minimum threshold across the country.

In the same region, Massachusetts requires a minimum annual earnings of $903,401 from its top 1% residents.

Here’s the list of all 50 U.S. states along with the annual income needed to be in the 1%.

Rank	State	Top 1% Income Threshold	Top 1% Tax Rate (% of annual income)
1	Connecticut	$952,902	28.40%
2	Massachusetts	$903,401	27.15%
3	California	$844,266	26.95%
4	New Jersey	$817,346	28.01%
5	Washington	$804,853	25.99%
6	New York	$776,662	28.29%
7	Colorado	$709,092	25.86%
8	Florida	$694,987	25.82%
9	Illinois	$660,810	26.35%
10	New Hampshire	$659,037	26.25%
11	Wyoming	$656,118	24.79%
12	Virginia	$643,848	26.11%
N/A	National Average	$652,657	N/A
13	Maryland	$633,333	25.94%
14	Texas	$631,849	25.83%
15	Utah	$630,544	23.77%
16	Minnesota	$626,451	25.53%
17	Nevada	$603,751	25.19%
18	South Dakota	$590,373	22.99%
19	Pennsylvania	$588,702	24.95%
20	North Dakota	$585,556	24.76%
21	Georgia	$585,397	25.06%
22	Oregon	$571,813	24.66%
23	Arizona	$564,031	25.22%
24	Idaho	$560,040	23.17%
25	North Carolina	$559,762	25.31%
26	Montana	$559,656	24.46%
27	Kansas	$554,912	25.03%
28	Rhode Island	$548,531	25.26%
29	Tennessee	$548,329	25.12%
30	Alaska	$542,824	25.38%
31	Nebraska	$535,651	24.10%
32	Delaware	$529,928	25.37%
33	Vermont	$518,039	23.63%
34	Wisconsin	$517,321	24.90%
35	South Carolina	$508,427	24.40%
36	Michigan	$504,671	25.01%
37	Maine	$502,605	24.04%
38	Missouri	$500,626	24.93%
39	Ohio	$500,253	25.09%
40	Hawaii	$495,263	24.12%
41	Iowa	$483,985	24.09%
42	Indiana	$473,685	24.55%
43	Alabama	$470,341	23.82%
44	Oklahoma	$460,172	23.68%
45	Louisiana	$458,269	24.80%
46	Arkansas	$450,700	21.11%
47	Kentucky	$445,294	24.14%
48	New Mexico	$411,395	23.35%
49	Mississippi	$381,919	23.04%
50	West Virginia	$367,582	23.26%
N/A	National Median Household Income	$75,000	N/A

California ($844,266), New Jersey ($817,346), and Washington ($804,853) round out the top five states with the highest minimum thresholds to make it to their exclusive rich club.

On the other end of the spectrum, the top one-percenters in West Virginia make a minimum of $367,582 a year, the lowest of all the states, and about one-third of the threshold in Connecticut. And just down southwest of the Mountain State, Mississippi’s one-percenters need to make at least $381,919 a year to qualify for the 1%.

A quick glance at the map above also reveals some regional insights.

The Northeast and West Coast, with their large urban and economic hubs, have higher income entry requirements for the top 1% than states in the American South.

This also correlates to the median income by state, a measure showing Massachusetts households make nearly $90,000 a year, compared to Mississippians who take home $49,000 annually.

How Much Do the Top 1% Pay in Taxes?

Meanwhile, if one does make it to the top 1% in states like Connecticut and Massachusetts, expect to pay more in taxes than other states, according to SmartAsset’s analysis.

A chart showing how states with the top highest and lowest average tax rates for their top 1% residents.

The one-percenters in the top five states pay, on average, between 26–28% of their income in tax, compared to those in the bottom five who pay between 21–23%.

And this pattern exists through the dataset, with higher top 1% income thresholds correlating with higher average tax rates for the wealthy.

State Ranks	Median Tax Rate
Top 10	26.65%
20-30	25.09%
30-40	24.65%
10-20	25.07%
40-50	23.75%

These higher tax rates point to attempts to reign in the increasing wealth disparity in the nation where the top 1% hold more than one-third of the country’s wealth, up from 27% in 1989.

Where Does This Data Come From?

Source: SmartAsset’s America’s Top 1% Is Different in Each State uses data from 2020 individual tax filings from the IRS, adjusted to 2023 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index.