When Did Millionaire Change Meaning? Massachusetts filers > $1M

[walkitout]

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/bbj_research_alert/2014/01/the-massachusetts-towns-and-cities.html

Someone did an analysis of DOR records by town, so you can observe Fun Facts like, wow, several percent of all households in Weston filed a tax return showing more than a million in income. I mean, we all knew about Weston, but it's still a bit startling.

I'm not sure what to think of all this, altho I really do sort of want to know when we moved from millionaire = person with a net worth of 1M or more to millionaire = person with an income of 1M or more in the course of a single year.

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

It had to happen sometime, just given inflation. Unfortunately there isn't a neat equivalent term at the right multiple of millions to convey what "millionaire" meant in, say, 1900 or 1950 (and of course those also would have been pretty different). "Billionaire" is too high and "multi-millionaire" too vague.

I can remember my dad disputing the tax valuation of his house at one point and saying after he got it successfully back down, "It was kind of fun being a millionaire, but not that fun."