The richest people in the United States have gotten a lot richer over the past 30 years. At least so says a data visualisation published by personal finance blog Credit Takeoff.
The top 10 richest Americans in 1990 had a combined wealth of SGD 40.28 billion. This is a figure that, if it were a single person, would not have cracked the top 10 list in 2019.
In 2019, the combined wealth of America's ten richest people was SGD 957.8 billion, a near 25 times increase from 30 years ago.
Personal finance blog Credit Takeoff has published a data visualisation that shows how Forbes' annual list of the wealthiest Americans has changed over the past 30 years.
Here are some key takeaways from the visualisation:
From 1990-2019, Bill Gates has been America's richest person 25 times. He holds the record of an astonishing 24-year run from 1994 to 2017, when he was finally surpassed by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.
Meanwhile, Warren Buffett has ranked inside the list of top five richest Americans every single year except for in 1991. He has also been a second place finisher behind Gates in 20 different years.
If Sam Walton – the founder of Walmart – had been alive for the past 30 years, he likely would have topped the Forbes 400 list every single year. But instead, Walton had divided his wealth among his wife and four children.