Americans surveyed in 2025 put the threshold for being considered wealthy at about $2.3 million in personal net worth. That figure comes from Charles Schwab’s annual Modern Wealth Survey, which asked 2,000 Americans ages 21 to 75 how much a person in their area would need to qualify as wealthy.
That sounds like a clean answer until the word “wealthy” gets dragged into real life. Someone can have a multimillion-dollar net worth and still carry a large mortgage, support family members, or live in an expensive city. Another person might have far less on paper but enjoy a paid-off home, manageable expenses, and enough investments to work less. The survey number tells an interesting story. It does not create a universal wealth cutoff.
