Apr 30, 2026
If you've ever assumed that millionaires are mostly people born into the right family or handed a fat inheritance, a massive body of research says you're almost certainly wrong.
Personal finance personality Dave Ramsey recently shared a striking finding from what he describes as "the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America (1)."
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Ramsey Solutions surveyed over 10,000 millionaires to understand exactly how they built their wealth, and the results challenge nearly every popular assumption about rich people (2).
"The typical millionaire that we found, 89% of them were first generation, meaning they did not inherit their money," Ramsey said on the podcast This Past Weekend with Theo Von (3). "That's good news for everybody. We've all got a shot."
Nine out of ten millionaires, in other words, built their wealth from scratch.
The study also found that 79% of millionaires received no inheritance whatsoever from parents or other family members. Though one in five did get some inheritance, $1 million or more was given only to 3%. Most didn't grow up with money, either: 80% came from families earning income at or below mid-level (4).
And it wasn't high-powered careers driving the wealth, either.
Just 15% of the millionaires studied were ever in a senior leadership role, like CEO or CFO, and 31% earned an average $100,000 per year over their careers. In fact, teachers ranked among the top five occupations of millionaires in the study (5).
So what's the formula?
According to Ramsey, the path these self-made millionaires followed came down to two straightforward moves: consistently investing in a 401(k) and buying a home, then paying it off (6).
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He illustrated it with a real-world example: a 42-year-old with a home worth $600,000 to $700,000 — paid off — and $600,000 to $800,000 sitting in a 401(k). That person is already a millionaire, with no windfall required (7).
The study confirmed that eight out of 10 millionaires invested in their company's 401(k) plan, and that step was identified as a key driver of their financial success (8).
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What the data shows
The data backs this up more broadly. According to Fidelity (9), the number of 401(k) accounts with balances exceeding $1 million grew to 537,000 in 2024, a 27% jump from the prior year. Fidelity also found that participants who stayed in the same plan for 15 years had an average balance of more than $500,000.
Homeownership is the other half of the equation: Ramsey has called himself (10) a "huge believer in homeownership" as a foundational wealth-building tool, particularly for those working toward their first million.
According to an Aspen Institute report drawing on Federal Reserve survey data, the median net worth of homeowners stands at roughly $400,000, compared to $10,400 for renters — a gap of nearly 40 times (11).
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That same report also found that median home equity alone sits at around $200,000, accounting for roughly half of the typical homeowner's net worth. And home prices have nearly doubled since 2009, with the national median climbing to over $427,000 by 2024 (12).
Can ordinary people still pull this off?
Everyday Americans can become millionaires, but there's no shortcut. The fastest path to a million-dollar net worth, as Ramsey frames it, is actually a slow and steady one, and the data from 10,000 millionaires confirms it works.
But it's harder than it used to be. "The path to owning a home is becoming narrower and more challenging to navigate; while many of today's renters will eventually build wealth through homeownership, a growing number will not," the Aspen Institute warned (13).
But Ramsey's broader point holds: the formula itself isn't complicated.
Maximize what you can put into a tax-advantaged retirement account. Buy a home within your means when you're ready, and work toward paying it off.
Consistent investing, keeping debt low and disciplined spending were what separated the millionaires in the study from the rest, not lucky breaks or outsized salaries (14).
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
Happy Scribe (1),(3),(6),(7),(10); Ramsey Solutions (2),(4),(5),(8),(14); Fidelity (9); Aspen Institute (11),(12),(13)
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With a writing and editing career spanning over 15 years, Emma creates and refines content across a broad spectrum of industries, including personal finance, lifestyle, travel, health & wellness, real estate, beauty & fitness and B2B/SaaS/tech.
