Yahoo Finance Video
Only 10% of Americans consider themselves wealthy, a recent Fidelity study found. Fidelity's head of advanced wealth solutions David Peterson joins Wealth! Host Brad Smith to discuss the study's findings, how people define being wealthy, and three things they credit achieving wealthiness to. "The survey found that only 10% of Americans consider themselves wealthy today, and while it's probably not surprising that such a small number consider themselves wealthy, what may be surprising is that the number is consistent across income and asset levels," Peterson says, explaining, "What the survey found is that having a great deal of wealth doesn't necessarily determine whether someone actually feels wealthy." He says the study found that "for most Americans, the definition of what it means to be wealthy is relatively modest. For many, a major criterion for feeling wealthy is simply not living paycheck to paycheck." "The tenth who consider themselves wealthy, basically, there are three things that boil down to how they achieve [their wealth] in their minds. One is investing strategically. The other is saving from a young age. You can't beat the power of compounding, after all. And finally, it's consistently allocating part of their paycheck to savings, being really systematic about it." To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Wealth here. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.