3 ms·
The linked piece about that book has a different idea of its claim: > The book “stands today as a sort of promise that everyday people have a shot at accumulat
by kixiQu 5y ago
The linked piece about that book has a different idea of its claim:
> The book “stands today as a sort of promise that everyday people have a shot at accumulating true wealth through habits and not just outsize risk,” wrote Ron Lieber at the New York Times. Wall Street Journal columnist Jonathan Clements called it “a roadmap for everyday Americans who want to accumulate significant wealth.”
That piece links this one:
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS394135834820131016 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS394135834820131016
> When Thomas Stanley and William Danko published their best-selling book in 1996, they made much of the statistic that “80 percent of America’s millionaires are first-generation rich.” The majority, they pointed out, were entrepreneurs, many working in blue-collar professions.
> Anyone could make it big, the two authors all but proclaimed; all you need is frugality and a few tax breaks. Don’t live in a pricey home. Put a cork in the Cabernet, and pop a Coors instead. But most important, open your own business. When it came to the secret sauce for scoring a million bucks, “a very big factor is self-employment,” Stanley said.
> The ensuing years have not been kind to the working-class millionaire.
> A little-noticed marketing report released last month by U.S. Trust contained the disturbing statistic that while almost a third of Baby Boomers worth more than $3 million claimed to have grown up in lower-middle-class homes, the number fell precipitously for younger cohorts, with 18 percent of Gen Xers and a mere 6 percent of such Millennials saying they came from working-class stock.
- apsec112 5y agoIf you're measuring by net worth, that's super confounded - making $3 million by growing a small business is a lot slower than being born to wealth. So the former will be disproportionately old regardless of generational cohort.
- kixiQu 5y agoYup, it needs a point-in-time comparison from when the Boomers' avg. age matched.
- candybar 5y ago> A little-noticed marketing report released last month by U.S. Trust contained the disturbing statistic that while almost a third of Baby Boomers worth more than $3 million claimed to have grown up in lower-middle-class homes, the number fell precipitously for younger cohorts, with 18 percent of Gen Xers and a mere 6 percent of such Millennials saying they came from working-class stock. This is the 2013 report being referenced here: http://doingmorethatmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2013-UST-Insights-Wealth-and-Worth-Full-Report.pdf http://doingmorethatmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2... Age Cohort Definition: Millennials: age 18–32 Generation X: age 33–48 Baby Boomers: age 49–67 Socio-economic status growing up among the wealthy: Age 18-32: 0% Poor, 6% Lower Middle Class Age 33-48: 4% Poor, 18% Lower Middle Class Age 49-67: 5% Poor, 31% Lower Middle Class Age 68+: 7% Poor, 24% Lower Middle Class This is almost entirely due to the fact being wealthy (to the tune of 3M+ net worth) is a far more exceptional outcome for younger people than it is for older people, especially given how much asset prices have gone up over the past few decades. Also these rely on self-assessments and my personal experience is that there's been a class inflation of how people describe themselves and their own upbringing. I suspect older people are more likely to describe their own upbringing as "Lower Middle Class" than younger people.