Did you pick a state?
Keep that state in your mind. Think about the state for a moment: what kind of people live there; what level of education do they have; what sorts of jobs do they have?
Now, for the kicker, what percentage of this state's households do you think have a net worth of $1 million or more?
Do you have a number?
How many of you picked Mississippi?
This should come as no surprise: the state has had a firm grip on last place for four straight years.
How many of you picked a number below 3.06%?
With all due respect to Mississippi, it is shocking to me that a state in as bad of shape as Mississippi, in a time when stock values (the place where most of the millionaires' wealth is housed) have nearly halved over the past year, can still claim millionaires in excess of three...full...percentage-points of the population.
On the other side of the spectrum is the state of Hawaii, with 6.41% millionaires. When the top state is only a little over double the bottom state, this, to me, implies that millionaires are pretty evenly distributed throughout the country. This is also pretty surprising, and goes against the creative class theory endorsed by Richard Florida, which says that the creative wealth-drivers of the world all migrate to cities -- cities like San Francisco and New York -- to be closer to one another.
(The statistics come from the Phoeix Affluent Market Group, as found via the Triangle Business Journal)
