If it feels like NYC is richer, you're right. One in every 24 residents is a millionaire.
Declan Gill via Getty Images
- New York City is now home to 349,500 millionaires. The city has the most in the world.
- Meanwhile, rising living costs are forcing lower-earning residents out of the city.
- Global wealth growth is driven by strong financial market performance, said Henley & Partners.
New York City is the metro with the highest number of millionaires, according to a ranking released Tuesday by immigration consultancy Henley & Partners.
Some wealthy residents moved out, but lots more moved in during the pandemic, bringing the Big Apple's millionaire count to 349,500 — more than any other city in the world,
With a population of 8.2 million, this means that one in 24 New York residents is a millionaire. The number is up 48% from a decade ago, per Henley's data.
With 60 billionaires, New York also boasts the title of the city with the second-highest number of ultra-wealthy residents, just behind the Bay Area's 68 billionaires.
The ranking may be further proof that New York is increasingly becoming a place for only the wealthy, as the cost of living in the city skyrockets.
Lower-earning residents are packing up. Nearly 200,000 New Yorkers making under $172,000 migrated out of the city between 2017 and 2022, according to a Fiscal Policy Institute report released in December.
For many, the exodus was a result of record-high cost of living. The average two-bedroom apartment in the city costs $4,950, up 26% from 2023, according to apartment finding site Zumper. Childcare has become impossibly unaffordable for many people, too — a family has to make about $300,000 a year to pay for childcare in the city. The median family income in the city is close to $75,000, which means 80% of the city cannot afford childcare.
Mark Radcliffe is one of many New Yorkers leaving the city to afford a better life.
Radcliffe spent over 12 years in New York City before moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma in September 2020, he wrote last year for Business Insider.
"I was paying $4,000 a month for my one-bedroom in the West Village," Radcliffe said about his New York rent. In Tulsa, his monthly expenses dropped to $2,000 a month. He managed to save enough to buy a three-bedroom home.
On the other side of the country, the Bay Area, which includes San Francisco and nearby counties, has the second-highest number of millionaires, at 305,700, per Henley's data.
The company reported that Miami, which is seeing an influx of America's ultrawealthy due to better weather and lower taxes, saw the number of millionaires rise 78% in the last 10 years, to 35,300.
In Asia, Henley said Tokyo had the highest number of seven-figure net-worth individuals, at 298,300, a 5% decline from a decade ago.
Singapore has become a hotbed for migrating millionaires due to its political and economic stability, and the absence of a capital gains tax. The city-state is fourth on Henley's global list of millionaire hot spots, and saw a 64% rise in the number of millionaires from 10 years ago. Given its smaller population of 5.92 million residents, it shares NYC's statistic of having one millionaire for every 24 people.