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Who wants to be a millionaire?
Want to be a millionaire? Improve your odds by moving to Los Alamos, N.M.
According to a report released last week by research firm Phoenix Marketing International, more than 10 percent of households in the New Mexico science and research hub have more than $1 million in investable assets.
But for all the wealth, Los Alamos is far from opulent. “We have a Starbucks,” Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corp. Executive Director Patrick Sullivan joked with The Wall Street Journal when asked to name some of the city’s amenities. “Unless you knew [about the wealth], it would never enter your mind.”
Among states, Maryland has the highest number of total millionaires, 170,248, as compared to 2,220,791 total households – or about 8 percent, Phoenix Marketing found. This is the fourth straight year Maryland has ranked the highest.
Maryland was followed by Connecticut, with 99,965 millionaires compared to 1,382,026 households (about 7 percent) and New Jersey, with 232,514 millionaires compared to 3,258,464 households (also about 7 percent).
These states have the “kinds of industries that are at the core of building wealth,” David Thompson, managing director of the Phoenix Global Wealth Monitor, told The Wall Street Journal. “Those are highly diversified economies based around industries such as information technology, aerospace and medicine.”
Oil, too, breeds millionaires. North Dakota now ranks 20th in millionaires as compared to last year, when it ranked 29th.
“The amazing rise of North Dakota in the millionaires rankings clearly demonstrates the power of an industry to quickly create wealth,” Thompson said in a statement, but added it will be challenging for the state to maintain its rise in the rankings once the oil boom subsides.
For the country overall, 5.2 percent of households have more than $1 million, Phoenix found. The much-discussed “1 percenters” would have more than $5 million in assets, Thompson told The Wall Street Journal.
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