Daily Digest Online

If you want to count yourself among the financial elite in America today, you'll need more than a six-figure salary. The real ticket is a net worth nearing two million dollars, a benchmark that has surged dramatically in just five years, reshaping not just bank accounts but the very profile of affluence in the post-pandemic era. Forget the old benchmarks of wealth. The goalposts for financial success in America have not just moved—they’ve leaped forward at a staggering pace. The latest data paints a clear, and for many, a daunting picture: to be counted in the wealthiest top 10% of U.S. households, you now need a net worth of approximately $1.8 million. This figure, distilled from a recent Visa analysis of Census Bureau data, represents a meteoric 40% climb from the roughly $1.3 million threshold of 2020. It’s a number that reflects a new reality where wealth is increasingly anchored not just in what you earn, but in what you already own, particularly if tha...