Where Millionaires Live in America

Looking to rub elbows with the rich? These 15 metro areas have the highest concentrations of households with at least a million dollars in liquid assets.

Image of money falling from the sky
(Image credit: Getty Images)

They say a million dollars isn't what it used to be, but it still earns you entry into an elite group of Americans. Only 6.7% of the nation's households, or about 8.4 million, qualify as bona fide millionaires.

Before anyone gets hot and bothered, we're talking about liquidity here. The millionaires in question have investable assets of $1 million or more, excluding the value of real estate, employer-sponsored retirement plans and business partnerships. A million dollars' worth of cash, stocks, bonds, what have you, is a far more restrictive definition.

New York and Los Angeles are home to the most millionaires in America because of their large populations and lucrative industries. No surprise there. However, it might surprise you that neither of these metropolises can claim the highest concentration of millionaires.

Phoenix Marketing International, a firm that tracks the affluent market, ranks 935 urban areas, large and small, based on the percentage of millionaire households in each. The following list of cities is limited to metropolitan areas with at least one urbanized area with a population of 50,000 or more. We examined small cities with big millionaire populations in a separate story.

Now, here are the 15 largest metropolitan areas boasting the highest concentration of millionaires in the U.S.

Disclaimer

Metropolitan areas are listed by percentage of millionaire households, from lowest to highest. Estimates of millionaire households provided by Phoenix Marketing International. Investable assets include education/custodial accounts, individually owned retirement accounts, stocks, options, bonds, mutual funds, managed accounts, hedge funds, structured products, ETFs, cash accounts, annuities and cash value life insurance policies. Data on household incomes and home values come from the U.S. Census Bureau. Living costs are based on the Council for Community and Economic Research's Cost of Living Index. Tax information is as of 2019.

Dan Burrows
Senior Investing Writer, Kiplinger.com

Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.

A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.

Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.

In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.

Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.

Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.