1 in 24 New Yorkers is a millionaire as world’s wealthiest cities ranked

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More millionaires live in New York City than anywhere else on the planet, according to a new global ranking of wealthy cities.

The report was produced by Henley & Partners and was first reported by Bloomberg.

According to the data, one in 24 people in New York City are millionaires – even after the pandemic-driven exodus from the city. That translates to approximately 349,000 millionaires living in the city.

In 2013, the same report found that only 1 in 36 New Yorkers were millionaires.

In addition to the staggering number of millionaires who call the city home, New York is also where 60 billionaires hang their likely expensive hats. That puts New York just behind the San Francisco Bay Area, which is home to 68 billionaires.

The data defines a “millionaire” as “individuals with liquid investable wealth of $1 million or more”.

That means cash or cash equivalents – not the value of properties or other fixed assets. New Yorkers collectively control more than $3 trillion.

Unfortunately, for most New Yorkers, that collective cash isn’t theirs to spend. The rising cost of living in the city – and the pandemic – has driven out nearly 200,000 New Yorkers making less than $172,000 per year between 2017 and 2022, according to a Fiscal Policy Institute report from December.

An average two-bedroom apartment in the city costs nearly $5,000 per month, an increase of nearly 26 per cent from 2023, according to Zumper, an apartment locating website.

Staying in the city is especially hard for families with two working parents; US Department of Labour statistics found that a typical New York City family spends 25 per cent of its income on childcare, which is triple the amount that the US government deems “affordable”. To fall into the federal standard for affordability, a New York City household would have to bring in $300,000 a year.

The stock market boom over the last several years has only helped New York’s rich. Global equities increased 20 per cent last year, and this year are up another 7 per cent, Bloomberg reports.

While some of New York’s monied residents left the state for the beaches and lower taxes offered by Florida – a change that helped boost the Sunshine State’s housing market last year – it’s clear that the exodus of rich Gothamites hasn’t done much to dethrone the city as one of the world’s wealthiest.

Of the 545,000 who left New York state in 2022, more than 91,000 moved to Florida, according to the New York Post.

Miami, the city of choice for the ultrawealthy moving to the state, has seen a 78 per cent jump in the number of millionaires calling it home, representing approximately 35,300 millionaires, Business Insider reports.

The only other US city to make the report’s top 10 list of millionaires was Los Angeles at sixth place. LA is home to 212,100 millionaires, which marks an increase of 45 per cent since 2013.

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