fbpx

Human Progress Logo Human Progress

01 / 05
1,700 New American Millionaires Every Day

Blog Post | Health & Medical Care

1,700 New American Millionaires Every Day

The U.S. has a remarkable degree of wealth mobility when it comes to self-made millionaires

Chelsea Follett —

An important milestone for internet access 

According to a report by the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union, almost half of the world’s population will have access to the internet by the end of 2016. This increase in access can largely be attributed to the growth of mobile networks and a continual decrease in prices worldwide. Currently, 47% of the world is online, but that figure is as high as 80% in well-developed nations and as low as 10% in less-developed ones. The report notes that less-developed countries (LDCs) tend to lag behind more developed ones by about 20 years, with LDCs having achieved a level of connectivity similar to that of more developed nations in 1998. Yet this report brings to light that with spreading connectivity and ever-decreasing prices, the internet will continually become more accessible and have the potential to benefit more individuals than ever. 

An Alabaman takes on Venezuela’s government

An Alabama Home Depot employee named Gustavo Diaz has become one of the most hated figures of the Venezuelan government for his role in setting the price of countless goods sold in his home country of Venezuela. Diaz runs the website “DolarToday.com”, which provides a benchmark exchange rate for the Venezuelan currency, the Bolivar. This information allows Venezuelans to buy and sell black-market dollars and effectively go around many of the strict controls instituted by the Venezuelan government. Diaz and his partners used to collect their information by polling exchange houses across the border in Colombia, but now use a method of scanning and adding up buy and sell requests on social media. With Venezuela currently in the throes of a massive recession, many Venezuelans rely on DolarToday for an exchange rate they can use to buy dollars in a nation that is increasingly in deficit of the physical currency to satisfy its skyrocketing inflation rates.  

1,700 new American millionaires daily 

According to Boston Consulting Group estimates, 1,700 new millionaires are minted in the U.S. every day. If this pace continues, that will mean 3.1 million new millionaires by 2020. The U.S. is home to far more millionaires than any other nation, with over 8-million households having financial assets above $1 million, and that’sexcluding the value of their homes. While $1 million does not have the purchasing power it did in the past, it still puts one in a wealth class above the majority of Americans, and certainly the majority of the global population. While the economy continues to be a topic of great consternation in many areas, this study shows the U.S. continues to possess a remarkable degree of wealth mobility when it comes to self-made millionaires. 

A new approach to a deadly disease 

In a surprising result, a Johns Hopkins University study cured an advanced prostate cancer patient of the disease following a treatment that involved shocking the cancer with very high and then very low levels of testosterone. After treatment, the patient’s “prostate specific antigen” levels, used to measure the disease’s activity, fell to zero and he no longer showed any signs of the disease. Similarly positive results were seen in other patients in the study, who showed decreasing PSA levels and shrinking tumor sizes. If replicable, these results demonstrate that this new treatment has great potential to benefit the many late-stage prostate cancer patients whose disease has become resistant to the conventional hormone treatments currently being used. 

Robotic food delivery now a reality

The U.K.-based food delivery service “Just Eat” has facilitated the world’s first takeout food order delivered by robot. Just Eat recently unveiled a pilot program in Greenwich, England, testing the robots with hopes to soon expand the program into other parts of Britain. The robot was created by Starship Technologies and is able to autonomously travel to the delivery address with the prepared meal loaded safely into a built-in compartment. The order, from a local Turkish restaurant, was delivered to a Greenwich woman who was understandably surprised to see a robot waiting for her when she opened the door. More such surprises are sure to happen in the coming months as Just Eat continues to expand its use of the technology in Greenwich.  

MSN | Wealth & Poverty

It Turns Out despite Avocado Toast, Millennial Wealth Is Booming

“A new report from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, looked at how wealth changed for different age cohorts from 2019 to 2023 by analyzing data from the Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts.

The analysis found good news for the much-beleaguered millennial generation: Their wealth grew at a historic clip.

Per CAP’s analysis, from the end of 2019 to the end of 2023, the average wealth of households under 40 grew by 49% — a $85,000 increase, to $259,000 from $174,000. The analysis said that rate of rapid wealth growth had never happened before in the data series’ history, and it came after wealth growth remained relatively stagnant for young Americans prepandemic.

Here’s the whopper: Wealth gains were even higher for just millennials, who were 23 to 38 in 2019; their wealth doubled from the end of 2019 to 2023.”

From MSN.

The Economist | Wealth & Poverty

Generation Z Is Unprecedentedly Rich

“In America hourly pay growth among 16- to 24-year-olds recently hit 13% year on year, compared with 6% for workers aged 25 to 54. This was the highest ‘young person premium’ since reliable data began (see chart 3). In Britain, where youth pay is measured differently, the average hourly pay of people aged 18-21 rose by an astonishing 15% last year, outstripping pay rises among other age groups by an unusually wide margin. In New Zealand the average hourly pay of people aged 20-24 increased by 10%, compared with an average of 6%.

Strong wage growth boosts family incomes. A new paper by Kevin Corinth of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, and Jeff Larrimore of the Federal Reserve assesses Americans’ household income by generation, after accounting for taxes, government transfers and inflation. Millennials were somewhat better off than Gen X—those born between 1965 and 1980—when they were the same age. Zoomers, however, are much better off than millennials were at the same age. The typical 25-year-old Gen Z-er has an annual household income of over $40,000, more than 50% above baby-boomers at the same age.”

From The Economist.

BusinessMirror | Poverty Rates

PHL Could Hit Single-Digit Poverty Years Ahead of Schedule

“Better labor market conditions and slower inflation in the country could turn the administration’s single-digit poverty incidence aspirations into a reality two years ahead of schedule.

This was according to the latest Macro Poverty Outlook for the Philippines, released by the World Bank on Monday. It estimated that poverty incidence in the country could decrease to 9.3 percent in 2026 from 12.2 percent this year and 17.8 percent in 2021.”

From BusinessMirror.