In Ramsey Solutions' 2017–2018 survey of more than 10,000 U.S. millionaires, 8 in 10 grew up in households at or below middle income. Only 2% said they grew up upper-income.
Most of us carry a picture of where wealthy people start: the good school, the safe neighborhood, someone who could cover a mistake. It's not a foolish picture. Money does help money. But the largest survey of American millionaires found that most of them didn't start there. They started in the middle, or below it.
Here's what the research says about where millionaires grew up, what it can't prove, and why the answer matters more for you than for them.
The butcher who bought the store
Leonard Gigowski grew up on Milwaukee's south side and rode the 6:30 bus to school every morning. After serving as a Navy cook in the Second World War, he came home and took a job as a butcher in a grocery store.
The store gave him something better than a raise. It gave him a little company stock. He held it for a long time. When he eventually sold it, he bought other stocks, and he kept going. Then he did the thing that separates his story from most: he bought a grocery store of his own. Later came a nightclub, a dance studio, and a few rental properties.
By every account, he spent almost nothing on himself. He lived in a plain home in New Berlin, outside Milwaukee. His lawyer, who helped him set up a foundation, described a simple life with nothing extravagant in it. His indulgences were ballroom dancing a few nights a week and a loft of racing pigeons.
He died in 2015, at 90. His estate, about $13 million, went almost entirely to a scholarship fund. It pays tuition for students at the high school he'd ridden the bus to as a boy. The school's alumni director, who'd known him for years, had imagined the gift might reach $4 million. It was more than three times that.
A butcher's job, a small stake in his employer, then a store of his own. Nothing in that beginning would have marked him out. That's the point.
What the surveys say about starting points
The Ramsey survey is the clearest on upbringing. Eight in ten millionaires grew up in households at or below middle income. Two percent grew up upper-income. It also found that 62% went to public state universities and 8% to prestigious private schools. The path most of them walked ran through ordinary schools and ordinary streets.
Thomas Stanley and William Danko found the same thing in the 1990s. About 80% of the millionaires in The Millionaire Next Door were first-generation affluent: the first in their line to have money. Their wealthy households tended to live in modest homes, in neighborhoods that didn't announce anything, for decades.
Then there's the survey that pushes the other way, and it deserves a fair reading. In 2024, Bank of America Private Bank surveyed just over a thousand Americans with at least $3 million to invest. A third had grown up wealthy and inherited money. Another 43% had a head start: either a wealthy upbringing or some inheritance. Only a quarter had grown up middle-class or poor with no inheritance.
So which is it? Both, and the difference is the bar. At one million dollars in net worth, most millionaires started ordinary. At three million in investable assets, a level far fewer people reach, a comfortable upbringing is more common. The higher you set the line, the more the starting point matters.
For most people reading this, the first line is the relevant one.
What the research can't say
None of this proves a modest start is an advantage. It isn't. Growing up with money means fewer setbacks, more second chances, and a cushion when things go wrong. The Bank of America numbers show that clearly at the top.
The surveys also depend on how people describe their own childhoods, decades later. "Middle income" means different things to different people. Someone who grew up comfortable but not rich may call it middle income; so may someone who grew up with real difficulty. The category is wide.
And as with every survey of millionaires, these hear only from the people who got there. Someone from a modest home who did everything the same and was stopped by illness or bad luck isn't counted. The surveys show that a modest start didn't prevent most millionaires. They can't show it never prevents anyone.
Gigowski's story has its own limits. Much of his wealth came from owning businesses, which carries risk most people shouldn't take on with money they can't afford to lose. And his frugality ran deeper than most of us would want to live.
What holds up is the plainest reading. Most of the people who built a million dollars did not start with a head start. They started where most people start.
What it means for you
If you grew up without much, the surveys are describing most millionaires, not the exceptions among them.
That won't change what a modest start costs. It may mean you began saving later, or with more to repair first. What the surveys change is the story you tell about the gap. The people on the other side of it, most of them, didn't cross it because of where they began. They crossed it because of what they did with ordinary pay over a long time.
A head start helps, and it isn't required. That's the honest summary of forty years of research, and it's better news than the picture most of us grew up with.
The habit underneath the number
Gigowski's life shows two of the four habits, and the second is one this site doesn't talk about as often.
He kept his lifestyle below his income. That's the one every survey finds. In Ramsey's study, 94% of millionaires live on less than they make.
And he owned a stake. First a small one, company stock from the store where he cut meat. Then a large one, a store of his own. Research on tax records by economists Matthew Smith, Owen Zidar, and their colleagues found that most of the highest earners in the country own something. Their income comes mainly from their own work in it. Gigowski's version was modest: a corner grocery. It was still his.
You don't need a business to build wealth. Most of the millionaires surveyed didn't own one. But a stake of any size changes the arithmetic, because it can grow while you sleep, and a paycheck can't.
The rule that makes it stick
The rule that carried Gigowski, and carries the ordinary-start majority, is give it years.
He held that first company stock for a long time before he did anything with it. He ran a corner store for decades. The wealth arrived at the end of a long life, not the middle of a short one. For someone starting from a modest home, that's the rule that matters most, because it's the one that doesn't care where you began. Time is the same for everyone.
This week: find the smallest stake you already have or could have. A workplace plan with an employer match. Company stock you're eligible for. A skill someone would pay for outside your job. Write it down, and take one step toward holding or growing it. If it's a plan you're not enrolled in, enroll before your next payday. If a month goes wrong, restart on the next one.
In short
- In the largest survey of U.S. millionaires, 8 in 10 grew up in households at or below middle income. Only 2% grew up upper-income.
- Most went to public state universities. Most were the first in their line to have money.
- At higher levels of wealth, a comfortable upbringing is more common. At one million, it isn't.
- A head start helps. It isn't required.
- The rule: give it years.
The keep: giving it years costs you the wish for a faster story. It gives you back the same clock every millionaire in the surveys used.
For education only, not financial advice. Returns are never guaranteed.
Sources
- Ramsey Solutions, The National Study of Millionaires, fielded Nov 2017 to Jan 2018, more than 10,000 U.S. millionaires: 8 in 10 grew up at or below middle income (the survey's wording: "come from families at or below middle-income level"); 2% upper-income; 62% public state universities; 8% prestigious private schools; 94% live on less than they make. Self-reported. Evidence: low to moderate.
- Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, The Millionaire Next Door (1996): about 80% first-generation affluent. Evidence: moderate; dated.
- Bank of America Private Bank, 2024 Study of Wealthy Americans: 1,007 respondents with $3 million or more in investable assets; legacy wealth 32%, head start 43%, self-made 25%. Evidence: moderate; industry survey.
- Matthew Smith, Danny Yagan, Owen Zidar, and Eric Zwick, "Capitalists in the Twenty-First Century," Quarterly Journal of Economics (2019): most top earners are working owners whose income depends on their own labor. Evidence: strong.
- Leonard Gigowski: Catholic Herald (Dec 2017); Aleteia (Nov 2017), including his lawyer's account; the Leonard Gigowski Catholic Education Foundation (IRS filings via ProPublica). Reports give the estate as about $13 million.
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