Study: Millionaires abound in New Hampshire

State has seventh-highest concentration of millionaire households in the country

New Hampshire has the seventh-highest concentration of millionaire households in the United States, according to a newly released report.

Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based Phoenix Marketing International reports in its annual Wealth & Affluent Monitor that 6.82 percent of New Hampshire households are millionaire households. The state held the same No. 7 spot in the 2015 rankings.

Nationally, the number of millionaire households has grown by more than 800,000 over the past five years and by more than 1.3 million since 2006, before the financial crisis, according to the report. But while the overall wealth market is growing, the ratio of millionaires to total U.S. households has remained relatively flat, meaning wealth is more concentrated and shifting geographically, said David Thompson, managing director, affluent practice, at Phoenix.

In fact, he said, the concentration of wealth in the U.S. continues to deepen as the top 1 percent of wealthiest U.S. households now holds 24 percent of the nation’s liquid wealth, while non-affluent households, representing 70 percent of U.S. households, control less than 10 percent.

Thompson said the research show that “the trends we’ve seen over the past 10 years show a deeper and wider wealth divide as families in the near- and emerging affluent segments fall further behind financially.”

The Phoenix report found that nearly 6.8 million U.S. households, approximately 5.5 percent of all U.S. households, had $1 million or more in investable assets – a 4 percent one-year increase in the number of millionaire households, or nearly 250,000 more households than in 2015. Nevertheless, over the past five-year and 10-year periods, the ratio of millionaire households to total U.S. households has remained relatively flat, up from 4.8 percent in 2006 and 5.1 percent in 2011.

By comparison, there are 16.4 million households in the “broad affluent” market (households with between $250,000 and $1 million in investable assets). They control $8.5 trillion in investable assets, or 35 percent of total liquid wealth in the U.S.; however, they lost $56 billion collectively between 2015 and 2016, according to the report. The vast majority of the losses ($54 billion) were among the “lower mass affluent” segment (households with $250,000 to $500,000).

In addition, the report found that the 14 million “near-affluent” households in the U.S. (with between $100,000 and $250,000) saw investable assets decline by $79 billion between 2015 and 2016, to $2.6 trillion.

According to the report, the 10 states with the highest percentage of millionaire households are:

1. Maryland (7.55 percent)

2. Connecticut (7.4 percent)

3. New Jersey (7.39 percent)

4. Hawaii (7.35 percent)

5. Alaska (7.15 percent)

6. Massachusetts (6.98 percent)

7. New Hampshire (6.82 percent)

8. Virginia (6.64 percent)

9. Washington, D.C. (6.32 percent)

10. Delaware (6.28 percent)