Nick Maggiulli juggles more than spreadsheets these days. He is Chief Operating Officer at Ritholtz Wealth Management, but he is also a blogger and now thanks to his latest book: “The asset managers,” which shot To New York Times Bestseller Status. Due to its many efforts, Maggiulli was at the head of a conversation that is increasingly relevant to Americans: what it means to have prosperity and how this meaning develops quickly. “Something strange is going on,” he said Assets In an interview.
Maggiulli’s insights are based on data and everyday observations, but he believes that the upper middle class goes through an “existential crisis”, as he has found in his blog “Of dollars and data. “” He said Assets About what he believes is to go in front of him: “The economy was not built to cope with so many people with so much money,” he said, indicating his research over what he calls the new economic classes of the United States.
In “The Wealth Head” Maggiulli suggests a new, data -backed framework for thinking about prosperity. It is a much larger topic than just Level 4. He divides American households into six financial levels that are between 10,000 and more to $ 10 million (level 5 and beyond). The most populous segment is Level 3-Die with $ 100,000 to $ 1 million in wealth, but he says that Level 4, the so-called “upper middle class”, is remarkable for its quick growth and the unique challenges.
Maggiulli’s analysis shows that the fearful, existential level 4 in 1989 was only 7% of the country, but from 2022/23, which had shot up to 18%. Admittedly, inflation means that a millionaire would have a net value of around 2 million US dollars at the end of the 1990s, also from 2022/23. Nevertheless, he says, this economic class is much larger than before, especially since the pandemic was, and he believes that “they have all these effects in the rest of the economy”.
The existential crisis of the upper middle class in the 21st century
According to Maggiulli, this demographic expansion has triggered unexpected economic side effects, from overcrowded airport lounges to bidding wars due to housing and luxury applications. “The economy was not built to cope with so many people with so much money,” he notes, combining “scarce resources” frustrations with the aspiring population of wealthy Americans. “They all compete for a small pool of resources,” he says.
The strangest thing that Maggiulli says is that these people are objectively very successful. “You have made up well in life … But in the USA relatively basis is the competition for these high-end goods very high. Now it has the feeling that we all cancel each other with all the additional prosperity.” The rich level 4 Americans could always move somewhere else, where their money would go much further, but they mainly stay in the USA, where they don’t feel like the millionaires they have become.
It really differs from the late 90s up to now, says Maggiulli and adds that an American with a net assets of 1 million US dollars would at that time rank into the top 5% of the assets, while this status belongs to someone worth $ 4 million in the 2020s. “So much wealth is created that the upper end sees this competition like never before,” he adds.
UBS Global Wealth Management noticed a similar trend in its 2025 edition of the Global Wealth Report and recorded a dramatic increase in the “Millionaire everyday lifeOr emilli. At the beginning of the millennium, there was a little more than 13 million emilli worldwide, but this number had an increase of more than four times increase in less than 25 years in less than 25 years. Even after adapting to inflation. Assets“And you have the feeling that you are just going on, even though you are statistically in the top 20% of US budgets.”
Maggiulli’s remarks are reminiscent of Charlie Munger’s, Warren Buffett’s long -standing right man Berkshire Hathawaywhich died in 2024. Last year, in his last appearance at the annual meeting for his newspaper holding, Daily Journal, Munger sounded a similar melody Things are always better, but people feel worse and worse. “People are less happy about the state of things than things when things were much harder,” said Munger and then made a remarkable comparison. “It is strange for someone my age because I was in the middle of the global economic crisis when the need was incredible.” Munger said that he was powerless to change how unhappy people felt, “after everything was improved by about 600% because there is still someone who has more”.
The importance of assets
Maggiulli’s analysis extends to the composition of the prosperity across classes: “The poor own cars, their own mid -range houses and the rich companies.” He emphasizes that the “rich” in America tend to have assets such as companies and stocks, not only real estate or raw materials. To really move the levels, the type of assets you own is really important.
Nick Maggle
Told Maggle Assets About the long -awaited “”Great asset transfer“When Babyboomer pass on your 124 -dollar fate to the gene Xers and Millennials or occur in the middle of life. If baby boomers age, it is expected that their assets are flowing into gene X and finally millennial, a process that he framed as” very normal “. But he warns that a large part of this assets are connected in illiquid assets such as real estate and the perception of their own Prosperity may be distorted by the Americans.
He is also open about what he calls it “Broken housing market. ““ Even wealthy adults are forced more often: In fact, Maggiulli’s research results never show so many millionaire tenants. Assets“Because it doesn’t make sense to buy, especially where the prices are, prices, everything.” The currently constructed real estate market does not add up for its situation.
For Maggiulli, the most important is the adaptability. He analogously analogous to personal financing in fitness: “You can imagine that a fitness teacher is someone who is a well -trained athlete to someone who is pathologically obese.” Financial strategies also have to change if individuals are progressing to the “asset managers”. This special ladder is not one that you should continue to climb for and further, but a very large ladder with a lot of plateaus, some with which you stay forever. He says you have to step back and re -evaluate: “Do I have to climb on? Is that right for me?”
Alex BrysonProfessor of Quantitative Social Sciences at the University of College London, told Assets Similar in an interview About his research in the 21st century labor markets, social mobility and young workers. “People at that time in their lives when they build and continue their careers and acquire ownership and, as they know, all the ladder things … it feels like someone has removed some of them on this ladder for some of them.” Bryson added that “we did not necessarily receive the same career structures and patterns in the current economy as in the past.
Maggiulli says he does not prevail so that people choose a certain way or another path, but are aware of their wealth and their trajectory. “I think a lot of people come there and they say: ‘Wait, I want to continue to go under this path? Or I can take my foot off the gas and choose another way where money is not the only thing I concentrate on.”
For this story, Assets Used generative AI to help with a first draft. An editor checked the accuracy of the information before publication.
