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Ever wonder where you fit in, wealth-wise, on a scale from “subsistence farmer” to Amazon’s AMZN, -0.15% Jeff Bezos?
If so, Bloomberg Businessweek is here to help.
“Millionaire” doesn’t cut it anymore, according to economics editor Peter Coy, who says it’s too broad because it covers “everyone from random pikers with a scant $1 million in net worth all the way up to people just shy of billionaire status.”
So Bloomberg developed a wonky scale based on scientific notation, or powers of 10. One million is 10 to the sixth power, so a basic millionaire is a 6. Someone with $1 is a zero and someone with a dime (or 1/10th of a dollar) comes in at -1. Less than that — negative net worth — and it’s -2.
Here’s the breakdown:
As you can see, the biggest cohort comes in at just 3, and that’s the median American renter with a net worth of $1,000, which covers a small emergency without borrowing. Only two people, Microsoft MSFT, -0.97% founder Bill Gates and the aforementioned Bezos get the 11 designation.
Tesla’s TSLA, +1.35% Elon Musk is stuck at 10 while Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is middle of the pack at 5.
“It’s a bit appalling that disparities in wealth have gotten so big that we need logarithms to describe them,” Coy wrote. “But that’s the world we live in.”
