After two straight years of declines, the number of millionaires in the U.S. grew by eight percent in 2010, totaling some 5.6 million households, according to Phoenix Marketing International.
And while California and New York continue to have the largest number of households worth more than $1 million, neither state even cracked the top five in Phoenix's 2010 ranking of the U.S. states with the highest percentage of millionaire households.
California boasts 716,316 millionaire households, followed by New York, with 381,197. But you have a better chance of meeting a millionaire in less obvious locales like Maryland, Hawaii and Alaska. This is mainly a matter of arithmetic: New York, for instance, has over 10 times more total households than six of the top 15 U.S. states with the highest percentage of millionaire households.
As Phoenix points out, the same four states which have topped the company's annual rankings for the past three years "share some important distinctions: they are small states with large concentrations of highly educated professionals and business owners."
For the fifth straight year in a row, Mississippi has the fewest millionaire households as a percentage of its total population, at 3.22 percent. And the national state average, Phoenix Marketing finds, is 4.78 millionaires per 100 households.
Rhinebeck, NY-based Phoenix Marketing International defines a millionaire household as one with $1 million or more in investable or liquid assets, excluding real estate.
We've listed the top 15 states with the highest percentage of millionaires in 2010, according to Phoenix Marketing International's ranking. Did your state make the list? See below:
