An AI boom and market rebound helped create 500,000 new millionaires in the US last year

• The US added half a million millionaires in 2023 — more than any other country.
• Stock market gains at the end of the year accounted for much of the increase, Capgemini reported.
• Government spending through laws such as the CHIPS Act also helped, according to the report.

The number of millionaires in the US went up by around 500,000 last year — more than any other country in the world.

America had 7.4 million "high net worth individuals" in 2023, up from 6.9 million in 2022, according to a new report from Capgemini. The firm's definition of a millionaire includes people with "investable assets" of at least $1 million, "excluding their primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables," according to a summary of the report.

After troubles in the stock market in 2022, 2023 proved to be a better year for the wealthy, Capgemini wrote. The number of millionaires, as well as their cumulative worth, fell in 2022.

In 2023, by contrast, "despite ongoing interest rate uncertainty and rising bond yields, equities surged along with the tech market, fueled by enthusiasm for generative AI and its potential impact on the economy," the report reads. Stock-market gains in the fourth quarter of 2023 played an outsized role.

Government spending, such as the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, also led to greater spending in industries such as semiconductors and construction.

All that helped raise the collective wealth of millionaires in the US by 7.4% last year, Capgemini said.

Even with the increasing number of millionaires, wealth remained concentrated among a small group. Just the top 1% of the HNWIs covered in the report held 34% of global wealth, the report found.

The US increase in millionaires was the greatest in absolute-number terms among the top 25 countries by number of millionaires, according to Capgemini.

But by percentage, the number of millionaires in the US rose by 7.3% for the year — a rate exceeded by Australia, India, and Italy, though those countries each had millionaire populations only in the hundreds.