UK Millionaires

[antelopevalley]

Can I ask you to post what proportion of the population of the UK you think are millionaires - WITHOUT GOOGLING.

Then google the figure.
If the proportion of the UK population that are millionaires is higher than you thought it was press YABU
If it is lower than you thought it was press YANBU

I am just curious. The proportion is not what I thought it would be. Just wondering if others have a better idea in their head, or if others will also be surprised.

By millionaire, I mean taking into account cash, investments, properties, etc. So if you liquidated all of your wealth, what proportion of the population would have a million pounds or more.

1.5% less than I thought.
we are in that percentage if you liquidated our assets, but it’s in property minus about 100K of savings in various places.

Lower but I think given current house prices, the figure should be higher than this.

I was surprised pension pots are so low. If you look ay posts on MN everyone has £500k pension pots.

I think that one reason that people will underestimate is that they probably think of wealth around retirement age, whereas of course there are millions of households where the workers are in their twenties and thirties, where very, very few will be millionaires.

I was surprised public sector pension values were so low, but then realised I was thinking if the value at retirement, rather than the average over the population.

They’re putting their guesses

@WahineToa I'm aware of that but even in cheaper parts of London houses are close to 1m. In the areas I've mentioned you need over 1m for a decent size house. I think it's about 1 in 12 London homes is 1m or more.

Yes, that’s what I was thinking too.

firstly I was thinking of households rather than individuals.

secondly I was thinking of the “at retirement value” i.e. how much households would have once mortgage was paid off and pension pots were fully funded.

I live in the south east where lots of quite ordinary homes are worth £1m plus. DH and would be millionaires by this reckoning. It's lower than I expected.

I would guess about 5% (incl houses but excl pension pots as I dont think most people can just liquidate that?)
My googling is showing 3.5% But that seems really variable depending on how they calculate it.

It's completely dependent on area due to house prices. By your definition I'm a millionaire, as are all of my neighbours and most of my local friends. But none of us would consider ourselves millionaires!

3.5% is my guess

Many will have mortgages against them.

I've looked up average LGPS pension pot and it's quite small. Not the £500k people expect.

I'd have though the figure for millionaires: assets less liabilities would be higher. Would the net assets for a married couple be divided by two? I imagine they would.

I guess one's estimate depends on location.

It does not matter if you do not consider yourself a millionaire or not. It is not an identity. It is a material fact.

What is the average public sector pension UK?
The average retired public sector employee has a workplace pension of £10,000 a year, according to the National Audit Office.

I don't know what size of pension pot that would need.

4%

@chaiz yeah London is in general ridiculous but those areas have more expensive homes than other areas, with older people who moved in when they were younger. I used to live in Putney. But younger people in London have huge mortgages.

Something around half a million pounds until recently.

I have no idea but I do know several. One family from a very working class background have 2 children which have become multi millionaires. My dads best friend too who started off with nothing.
If we count just being paper millionaires then I think the number will be fairly high. I’m nowhere near though.

The % is apparently slightly lower than I guessed.
But like others, I do think it depends on how you define a millionaire.

"Median household net wealth in Great Britain was £302,500"

"The wealth of the richest 1% of households was more than £3.6 million, compared with £15,400 or less for the least wealthy 10%"

"Median wealth was highest for households whose head was aged 55 years to under State Pension age (£553,400); the wealth of this group was 25 times higher than those aged 16 to 24 years."

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/totalwealthingreatbritain/april2018tomarch2020

I'm very surprised about the public sector pensions.

You do not need half a million to get £10k a year. Average life expectancy after 60 is 23.59 years. So if you really needed to build up half a million pension pot to get £10k a year it would be better just to withdraw it all and stick it in a current account. You would have to live to well over a 100 before you would run out of money.

Also depends if two people own a £1 million house together, are they both millionaires? Or are they worth £500,000 each?