How Many Billionaires Are in America? Counting Them Three Ways
Forbes says 902. Then 989. Altrata says 1,265. Same country, same rough stretch of time – here’s why America’s billionaire count depends entirely on who’s counting.
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The Forbes 400: Churn
What share of each year’s Forbes 400 is still on the list 5, 10, 20 and 30 years later — measured across four decades — and what that does and doesn’t say about “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves.”
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The Forbes 400: The Price of Admission
In 1982 it took $75 million to make the Forbes 400 — about $250 million today. In 2025 it took $3.8 billion. How fast the cutoff rose, and against what.
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The Forbes 400: The 1982 List, 44 Years Later
The first Forbes 400, in 1982, had 436 entries. Thirteen of those people are still on the list. Which fortunes survived through heirs, which fell off, and which are simply gone.
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“More Likely to Be Homeless Than a Millionaire”: What Americans Now Believe About Wealth
Three in five U.S. voters say they are likelier to become homeless than a millionaire. Two independent 2026 polls agree on why — and the arithmetic only half agrees.
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Net Worth Is Not Net Worth: How Billionaire Fortunes Evaporate on Paper
A billionaire “losing $18 billion in a day” didn’t lose money. Here’s what the headline net-worth number actually measures, how Forbes and Bloomberg build it, and what it would really be worth if anyone tried to spend it.
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Taxing the Billionaires: Wealth-Tax Debates From California to Warren
A billionaire wealth tax was proposed in six places between 2024 and 2026 and lost in all of them. Norway ran the real experiment. Here’s what actually happened to the money — and why the arithmetic is harder than either side admits.
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The Giving Pledge: Public Promises, Private Delivery
Giving Pledge signers promised half their fortunes to charity. Fifteen years on, the founding class has given $206 billion — and gotten 283% richer. Here’s the arithmetic.
