Engaging in some water cooler chit chat, one of my coworkers opined that one million dollars isn’t really what it used to be and in the 30 years until his retirement it will be less money yet. 

Well…sort of. I understand that a cool mil doesn’t carry the panache that it did in the 40s or 50s. But as a confirmed child of the 1970s, I spent a considerable portion of my childhood thinking once you entered the double comma club, someone would issue you a top hat and a monocle. You’d also develop a taste for Grey Poupon and take up golf, or badminton, or some other hoity-toity activity.

I also remember the first person I met who was actually a millionaire. He was a client of the architecture firm I worked at and perhaps the tackiest man alive. He was on his second house, third wife, and fourth Jaguar at that point and all those numbers would increase by at least two before he died a few years later. In truth, it turns out that while he had gotten a tidy sum earlier in life, he was a horrible businessman, a poor judge of marital partners, and far more interested in appearing rich than actually being rich.

Soon after, he wasn’t. But I digress.

While a million dollars doesn’t carry the weight it once did given the onward march of inflation, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t a worthy benchmark, a truly spectacular milepost that most Americans (at least in this era) will ever see. Currently, 8.8% of Americans have a 7 figure net worth and a surprising number of their fellow Americans are not on track to reach that milestone in their lifetime; particularly given the average savings rate is just south of 4%.

The average millionaire crosses that line at age 49, after a 20+ year career saving and investing a portion of their wages. In fact, just maxing out a Roth IRA ($500 per month) and investing it in the S&P500 will see you join the club in 32 years assuming the future returns are 9% like they were in the past. And while I’m sure that in 32 years a mil will buy less than it does now, I also know this:

A million dollars is more than “not a million dollars”.

The median net worth of a 49 year old is currently $164,197.00…far, far less than a million.