Nearly 2 million people around the world became millionaires last year, a year-over-year increase of 15 percent, as surging stock and home markets lifted the fortunes of the wealthy. The increase raised the number of millionaires to a record 13.7 million. A report from consultant Capgemini and the Royal Bank of Canada estimated the combined net worth of millionaires at $53 trillion in 2013. The number of U.S. millionaires rose 570,000, 17 percent, to 4 million. Other data however paints a darker reality. In the United States, incomes for the highest-earning 1 percent rose 31 percent from 2009 through 2012, mainly fueled by ownership of recovering stocks and housing market, according to data compiled by Emmanuel Saez, an economist at University of California, Berkeley. For everyone else, who don’t own much stock, income rose an average of just 0.4 percent.
ABC News correspondent Scott Goldberg joined us to discuss details:
Follow us on Twitter:
