United States

Mapped: The Wealthiest Person in Every U.S. State in 2020

Published

3 years ago

March 31, 2020

Jeff Desjardins

The Wealthiest Person in Every U.S. State in 2020

The Wealthiest Person in Every U.S. State

There are different degrees of wealth that exist, even among the richest in America.

For example, a heavy-hitting millionaire might have the most impressive fortune in his or her home state — but venture a few miles across the state border, and suddenly they become a small fish in a much bigger pond.

Today’s map comes to us from HowMuch.net, and it shows the incredible variance in the biggest fortunes on a state-by-state basis.

The Rich List, by State

Below is the full list containing the wealthiest person in every U.S. state, based on calculations by Forbes in early March 2020.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tops the list with a net worth of $117.1 billion in the state of Washington — meanwhile, the smallest fortune on the list is located in Alaska at just $0.3 billion.

Rank	Person	State	Net Worth ($B)
#1	Jeff Bezos	Washington	$117.1
#2	Warren Buffett	Nebraska	$89.6
#3	Mark Zuckerberg	California	$81.9
#4	Michael Bloomberg	New York	$58.4
#5	Jim Walton	Arkansas	$51.9
#6	Alice Walton	Texas	$51.7
#7	Charles Koch	Kansas	$42.8
#8	Sheldon Adelson	Nevada	$41.4
#9	Phil Knight and family	Oregon	$40.0
#10	Jacqueline Mars	Virginia	$30.2
#11	John Mars	Wyoming	$30.2
#12	Ray Dalio	Connecticut	$18.7
#13	Thomas Peterffy	Florida	$17.6
#14	Abigail Johnson	Massachusetts	$16.0
#15	Pierre Omidyar	Hawaii	$13.2
#16	Ken Griffin	Illinois	$13.1
#17	Thomas Frist Jr and family	Tennessee	$13.0
#18	John Menard Jr	Wisconsin	$11.7
#19	Philip Anschutz	Colorado	$11.5
#20	Carl Cook	Indiana	$10.4
#21	Jim Kennedy	Georgia	$9.9
#22	Harold Hamm & family	Oklahoma	$9.7
#23	James Goodnight	North Carolina	$8.0
#24	Victoria Mars	Pennsylvania	$7.5
#25	Pauline MacMillan Keinath	Missouri	$6.9
#26	Dennis Washington	Montana	$6.7
#27	Daniel Gilbert	Michigan	$6.5
#28	Ernest Garcia II	Arizona	$6.2
#29	John Overdeck	New Jersey	$6.1
#30	Ted Lerner and family	Maryland	$5.5
#31	Harry Stine	Iowa	$5.4
#32	Tamara Gustavson	Kentucky	$5.0
#33	Les Wexner and family	Ohio	$4.5
#34	Frank VanderSloot	Idaho	$3.7
#35	Gayle Benson	Louisiana	$3.1
#36	Glen Taylor	Minnesota	$2.8
#37	T. Denny Sanford	South Dakota	$2.4
#38	Susan Alfond	Maine	$1.9
#39	Anita Zucker	South Carolina	$1.9
#40	Jonathan Nelson	Rhode Island	$1.8
#41	Gail Miller	Utah	$1.6
#42	Jim Justice II	West Virginia	$1.5
#43	James and Thomas Duff	Mississippi	$1.4
#44	Gary Tharaldson	North Dakota	$1.0
#45	Jimmy Rane	Alabama	$0.9
#46	Elizabeth Snyder and Robert Gore	Delaware	$0.9
#47	Andrea Reimann-Ciardelli	New Hampshire	$0.7
#48	Mack C. Chase	New Mexico	$0.7
#49	John Abele	Vermont	$0.6
#50	Leonard Hyde, Jonathan Rubini and Families	Alaska	$0.3

While all of the names above are considered extraordinarily wealthy in their home states, there is still a magnitude of difference involved. The low end of the list ($0.3 billion) would need to multiply their fortune by 390 times to get up to the $117.1 billion Bezos level.

To put this another way, the same degree of difference exists between the median household wealth in the U.S. (~$100,000) and a multi-millionaire with $39 million to their name.

Rising and Falling Fortunes

The above figures were obtained prior to the COVID-19 market crash, which will surely impact the size of some of the fortunes listed here.

Who will be most and least impacted by the recent stock market turmoil?

Even though Jeff Bezos has most of his wealth tied up in Amazon stock, so far it has been relatively unaffected by the volatility. With more people staying home because of social distancing, orders on online platforms such as Amazon have exploded.

Similarly to Amazon, the heirs of the Walmart fortune in the Walton family — including Jim Walton, Alice Walton, and Rob Walton — are also seeing Walmart’s stock price hold relatively steady in the face of volatility. In fact, some analysts consider Walmart to be the ultimate “recession-proof” stock, as consumers flock to discount goods in poor economic times.

Warren Buffett is also an interesting case. Though the stock market has certainly disrupted the real-time value of his fortune, that’s not the game that Warren Buffett plays. In fact, he is known for waiting for times of crisis to deploy his cash, and has a significant stockpile of money ready for just this kind of situation.

Billionaires like Sheldon Adelson in Nevada or Philip Anschutz of Colorado might be singing a different tune than some of the other above magnates. Adelson, for example, owns a good chunk of the Las Vegas Strip, as well as casinos and hotels in Singapore and Macao. Unfortunately, tourism-related businesses are some of the hardest hit in the COVID-19 crash.

Meanwhile, Anschutz owns the Coachella Music Festival and stakes in many professional sports teams (LA Lakers, LA Kings, and multiple MLS teams), which have all been impacted by the cancellation of big events and gatherings throughout the country. Like many others, Anschutz is probably itching for things to get back to normal.

Related Topics:millionaires billionaires states fortunes bezos money

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United States

Charted: Public Trust in the Federal Reserve

Public trust in the Federal Reserve chair has hit its lowest point in 20 years. Get the details in this infographic.

Published

6 days ago

May 23, 2023

Marcus Lu

The Briefing

Gallup conducts an annual poll to gauge the U.S. public’s trust in the Federal Reserve
After rising during the COVID-19 pandemic, public trust has fallen to a 20-year low

Charted: Public Trust in the Federal Reserve

Each year, Gallup conducts a survey of American adults on various economic topics, including the country’s central bank, the Federal Reserve.

More specifically, respondents are asked how much confidence they have in the current Fed chairman to do or recommend the right thing for the U.S. economy. We’ve visualized these results from 2001 to 2023 to see how confidence levels have changed over time.

Methodology and Results

The data used in this infographic is also listed in the table below. Percentages reflect the share of respondents that have either a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence.

Year	Fed chair	% Great deal or Fair amount
2023	Jerome Powell	36%
2022	Jerome Powell	43%
2021	Jerome Powell	55%
2020	Jerome Powell	58%
2019	Jerome Powell	50%
2018	Jerome Powell	45%
2017	Janet Yellen	45%
2016	Janet Yellen	38%
2015	Janet Yellen	42%
2014	Janet Yellen	37%
2013	Ben Bernanke	42%
2012	Ben Bernanke	39%
2011	Ben Bernanke	41%
2010	Ben Bernanke	44%
2009	Ben Bernanke	49%
2008	Ben Bernanke	47%
2007	Ben Bernanke	50%
2006	Ben Bernanke	41%
2005	Alan Greenspan	56%
2004	Alan Greenspan	61%
2003	Alan Greenspan	65%
2002	Alan Greenspan	69%
2001	Alan Greenspan	74%

Data for 2023 collected April 3-25, with this statement put to respondents: “Please tell me how much confidence you have [in the Fed chair] to recommend the right thing for the economy.”

We can see that trust in the Federal Reserve has fluctuated significantly in recent years.

For example, under Alan Greenspan, trust was initially high due to the relative stability of the economy. The burst of the dotcom bubble—which some attribute to Greenspan’s easy credit policies—resulted in a sharp decline.

On the flip side, public confidence spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was likely due to Jerome Powell’s decisive actions to provide support to the U.S. economy throughout the crisis.

Measures implemented by the Fed include bringing interest rates to near zero, quantitative easing (buying government bonds with newly-printed money), and emergency lending programs to businesses.

Confidence Now on the Decline

After peaking at 58%, those with a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the Fed chair have tumbled to 36%, the lowest number in 20 years.

This is likely due to Powell’s hard stance on fighting post-pandemic inflation, which has involved raising interest rates at an incredible speed. While these rate hikes may be necessary, they also have many adverse effects:

Negative impact on the stock market
Increases the burden for those with variable-rate debts
Makes mortgages and home buying less affordable

Higher rates have also prompted many U.S. tech companies to shrink their workforces, and have been a factor in the regional banking crisis, including the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Where does this data come from?

Source: Gallup (2023)

Data Notes: Results are based on telephone interviews conducted April 3-25, 2023, with a random sample of –1,013—adults, ages 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on this sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. See source for details.