NEW YORK - The richest 400 Americans are significantly richer in 2013
than they were last year and younger Americans are accumulating wealth
at a faster clip than their baby boomer counterparts, according to two
reports released Monday.
The annual Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans list showed that total wealth
climbed 19 percent in the last year to $2.02 trillion, up from $1.7 trillion,
with an average net worth per individual of $5 billion, up from $ 4.2 billion
in 2012. It now takes $1.3 billion in assets just to get on the list.
Atop the list for another year was Bill Gates, who at 57 has a net worth
of $72 billion. He was followed by Warren Buffett, who despite giving
away about $1 billion last year, was the biggest gainer, adding $12.5
billion to bring his fortune to $58.5 billion.
The average age was 66, according to Forbes senior editor Kerry Dolan.
Only 32 of those selected were 48 or younger, fitting them into Generation
X or Generation Y, while the rest of the list were baby boomers. Many of
the younger billionaires are household names who made their fortunes in
the tech industry - Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (20), Computer maker
Michael Dell (25), Yahoo’s Jerry Yang (327), Tesla Motor’s Elon Musk (61)
and Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin (13 and 14).
“It takes a long time to build up a company that’s worth billions of dollars
- unless you’ve inherited it,” said Dolan.
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