One Million Dollars Isn't What It Used to Be

There was a time the word “millionaire” carried cachet. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was first used in French in the early eighteenth century and in English nearly a century later. Regardless of your station in French society in 1719, you would recognize a net worth of one million lives being notable. The same would be true for one million U.S. dollars a century later. Only a small percentage of society could be listed within a roster of millionaires(Forbes magazine).

Millionaires are easier to find today. Inflation and the erosion of the value of a dollar over the course of two or more centuries has put the goal of having a financial worth of one million dollars within reach for more Americans, but the club is no longer the exclusive party it once was. When the term became popular in American print, the persons most likely to be millionaires were the heads of large, multinational corporations. These are the same folks who are most likely to be multi-billionaires today.


- Don