Think $1 million makes you rich? Here’s what it takes to join America’s top 10%

In America, the wealth gap is turning into a chasm. As the stock market and AI boom mint wave after wave of new millionaires, wealth is consolidating at the top more than ever. Across three quarters of last year, ultra-wealthy Americans in the top .1% and the super rich in the top 1% held onto their highest shares of wealth ever recorded. Households in the top 1% increased their net worth by $1.8 million on average from between 2024 and early 2026, according to a new report from left-leaning think tank the Center for American Progress. Above that, the top .1% increased their wealth by $9.6 million. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of households in the U.S. wealth distribution only added $1,200 in two years. By those numbers, the upper tier of rich Americans grew their wealth by 8,000 times more than any of the 68 million households in the bottom half. In the U.S., the top 1% of taxpayers made $675,602 in adjusted gross income (income minus deductions) according to the most recent federal income tax data, which lags by a few years. Roughly 1,500 Americans reported over $78.6 million in adjusted gross income in the same time period, drawing from tax year 2023. But that only takes income in…