NYC is now home to 400,000 millionaires — the most in the world

A million isn't what it used to be.

Dana Dennis, born and raised in Brooklyn, is one of many caught in the city’s affordability crisis.

She and her husband earn more than $100,000 a year — a salary that would provide a comfortable life in many other parts of the country. Yet, after the birth of their first child, they realized staying in Brooklyn was untenable.

"I was seeing things on the market for like $4,500 [monthly rent] if I wanted to stay, even in (Bedford-Stuyvesant). This is not Midtown that we're talking about, right? I'm talking about central Brooklyn," Dennis recalled to NBC News.

Unable to find a two-bedroom apartment they could afford, the family relocated to New Jersey — and they're far from alone, according to a study from the Fiscal Policy Institute. In 2022, residents leaving NYC were most commonly earning under $172,000 a year. What's more, over a third of those leaving said they moved specifically in search of affordable housing.

In response to the issue, NYC Mayor Eric Adams has a "City of Yes" initiative, aimed at dramatically increasing housing construction, with the goal of adding tens of thousands of new units over the next 15 years.

Still, for many like the Dennis family, that help isn’t arriving soon enough. Even New Jersey isn’t necessarily a safe, long-term haven. "We aren't finding houses, not even here in New Jersey, that are under $750,000," Dennis indicated.

I don't quite understand this fixation with being a millionaire. Being a millionaire is nothing to be overly impressed about. In most cities millionaires are a dime a dozen, and you'd never even know you were looking at one because typical millionaires do not stick out like a sore thumb.

How do you define "millionaire"? Net worth? Salary? Something else?

R4, millionaire means $1,000,000 net worth excluding your primary residence.

My net worth is $3.2 million and my primary residence is only worth about $600K, so I guess I qualify.

Yes, you do r6.

Congratulations R6 - that must have been very difficult for you to share with us.

I’m surprised the number isn’t higher

The downside of gentrification and a relatively lower crime rate in the ‘00s and ‘10s was that it made NYC living seem like so much FUN. Normies from all over wanted to come here, more than in the prior decades.

Even they can’t afford a Broadway ticket

R6 is the kind of person who got beat up in high school, then shoved into a locker.

I wanna live there! 🤩 Yoo hoo millionaires, marry me!

Okay. I’m a multi-millionaire. I still worry about money. Never will it end.

parasites

If all the wannabes move to New Jersey, Long Island or Connecticut, those will soon be out of reach. I lived in San Francisco during the dotcom boom of the 1990s. Businesses had to close because they couldn't get the service people to fill job vacancies. What were tract homes in Palo Alto are now selling for 1.5 to 5 million.

Had been told years ago that the houses on the west side of San Francisco (the avenues) originally sold for $5000. Looked that up recently and the actual price was between $4000-5000. Now they're selling for 900k on up. Who can afford to live there anymore? Not people with normal salaries.