These rankings may surprise you
The United States is home to around 36% of the world’s personal wealth, 40% of all millionaires and nearly one-third of all billionaires. In 2025 alone, the number of US dollar millionaires increased by roughly 1,200 per day. Given those statistics, where do you think the US ranks in terms of wealth per adult?
The answer depends entirely on whether you look at the average American or the median American. Measured by median wealth per adult—arguably the better gauge of what a typical household looks like—the US does not even make the top 20. At roughly USD 69,000 per adult, it would rank 28th among the countries covered in the UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, between Austria (USD 71,000) and Greece (USD 59,000). Instead, the highest median wealth levels are found in Luxembourg (USD 394,000), Belgium (USD 277,000), Australia (USD 211,000), New Zealand (USD 207,000) and Denmark (USD 204,000).
The apparent contradiction disappears once we switch from median to average wealth. On that measure, the US ranks second in the world, with average wealth of almost USD 700,000 per adult—behind only Switzerland (USD 910,000) and ahead of Luxembourg (USD 655,000). The gap between the United States’ ranking on average wealth (2nd) and median wealth (28th) highlights a feature of the US economy we’ve been talking about for a while: strength at the aggregate level, but weakness in the distribution (the ‘typical’ American is not as wealthy as the typical resident of many other advanced economies).