the.com/millionaire
A number that used to mean yacht, now just means 'owns a house in a decent zip code'.
means A person whose total wealth adds up to at least one million units of currency.
from Borrowed from French 'millionnaire,' built on 'million' (itself from Old Italian 'milione,' a big augmentative of 'mille,' thousand — literally 'a big thousand'). The word crossed into English in the late 1700s, right as fortunes from trade, land, and early industry were minting a new class of the newly, showily rich.
- original threshold
- coined in 1700s France, meant true elite wealth
- inflation reality
- a 1920 millionaire would need $18M today
- modern version
- often just a paid-off mortgage plus a 401k
- us headcount
- over 20 million americans now qualify