Here is a thing.
In 1916, that American oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first billionaire.
1916. The first billionaire. One lone, single, solitary billionaire. Rockefeller.
These days, it seems everyone is a millionaire or a billionaire.
Currently, there are 24,500,000 millionaires in the United States. That is one in ten people in the U.S.
And. As of 2024, there are 756 billionaires living in 43 of the 50 U.S. states or Washington, D.C. The only states with no billionaire residents are Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia.
I live in Ohio. We have seven billionaires here. They are:
• Denise York and family: Co-chairs and owners of the San Francisco 49ers, with a net worth of $5.1 billion in 2022
• Les Wexner and family: Founders of L Brands and Ohio’s wealthiest person, with a net worth of $6.1 billion in 2022
• August Troendle: CEO of Medpace, with a net worth of $1.8 billion in 2022
• Clayton Mathile: Net worth of $2.3 billion
• Norma Lerner: Net worth of $1.1 billion
• Nancy Lerner: Net worth of $1.1 billion
• Randolph Lerner: Net worth of $1.1 billion
On the other end of the scale, 13.5% of the people live in poverty. That is just over one in ten people. The highest percentage live in Mississippi. The poverty rate there is 19.6%, followed by Louisiana (18.7%) and New Mexico (18.6%). Ohio is 18th on this list with 13.6%, which is just about the national average.
So there we are. The ups and the downs.
There is no record of the first person living in poverty in the United States. It happened without anyone noticing. That still seems to be the trend. We know the numbers are there, but we don’t often recognize the people.
And that is a sad, hard thing.
Do something good today, even if it is small. It makes a difference.
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“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” — Epictetus
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“Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.” — P.T. Barnum
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“The way to wealth is to learn something new every day.” — Benjamin Franklin
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For richer. For poorer. It goes both ways.
