Are Two People in a Couple That Have One Million Dollars Between Them Considered Millionaires?

Filed in archive General on December 21, 2006

Dr. Evil: Okay, here's the plan. We get the warhead and then hold the world ransom for... 1 MILLION dollars!
Number Two: [clears throat] Sir, strictly speaking, a million dollars will not go very far these days. Virtucon alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year.
Dr. Evil: Really? Okay then... we hold the world ransom for 1... hundred... BILLION dollars!

I don't know that the above exchange is relevant to this post, but it makes me laugh, so there you go. I'd also like to mention that I believe this is the longest title I've given to any of my posts, but it was fun so I'm considering making a lot of really long titles, sort of like Fiona Apple did with that one album that nobody bought. Now, down to business.

My last post mentioned The Millionaire Next Door, which made me think of something I've often wondered. In a few years, between home equity, retirement savings, etc., our household should have a net worth of a million dollars. Does that make us millionaires? Or do we have to have two million dollars to really be millionaires, since there are two of us?

If my wife and I divorced and each got half, neither of us could qualify as millionaires in this situation, only half-millionaires, and no one talks about them.

And, if we would be considered millionaires together, could I then label myself alone a millionaire? Could I call up my friend Tony and say "Guess what? I'm a millionaire?" Or would he say, "How much money you got?" "A million dollars." "Yeah, but there's two of ya, that don't count. Call me when you got two million, you loser."

And when the book talks about The Millionaire Next Door, does it refer only to single people with a net worth of one million dollars, or married couples whose combined assets equal one million dollars?

If we're allowed to be millionaires with combined assets of one million dollars, this means that there is a "singles penalty" for unmarried people, in that they have to accumulate $1 million all by themselves in order to be called millionaires. That doesn't seem fair at all.

This is an important issue. If I don't know when I'm officially a millionaire, how am I going to define my self worth?