George Kamel - Are You In the Top 10% of Americans?

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

🪺 See how much your money could grow over time with the Investment Calculator. 💰 Find out your net worth in minutes with the Net Worth Calculator. Are you in the top 10% of Americans financially? You might be surprised. In today's video, we'll look at what it takes to be in the upper echelon of wealth in this country, so you’ll know how you stack up and what to do about it. Next Steps: • 🎥 Watch my video How Much You Should Have in Your 401(k)—By Age. • 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! • 📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan. Connect With Our Sponsors: • Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. • Learn more about opening a high-yield savings account with Laurel Road. • Get up to 40% off Cozy Earth with code GEORGE. • Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle! Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you in the top 10% of Americans financially? You might be surprised by the answer. You see, it's not just celebrities and billionaires and finance pros who sleep in Patagonia vests. In today's video, we'll look at what it takes to be in the upper echelon of wealth in this country, so you'll know how you stack up and what to do about it. I like that a lot. Okay, if you think there's no chance you're in the top 10%, you might want to think again, because you can be in a completely different percentile depending on what you're measuring.

For example, you can have a huge income and no savings. Or maybe you're a modest earner, but you've been quietly building wealth for years. Or maybe you're unemployed, but you have a sweet collection of rare Pokemon cards. So today, we're going to look at the data in four different areas. Income, emergency savings, retirement savings, and net worth. And hopefully you'll find yourself in the top 10% of at least one of these areas. And if not, well, we'll get to that at the end of the video. But first, let's look at the data around income,

because that's usually the first thing people think about when it comes to wealth. To be in the top 50% in terms of household income, you'd need to make $80,020 per year. So if your household brings in more than $80,000, congratulations. You're already ahead of half the country. To be in the top 25% of earners, you'd need to earn $144,770 per year. And to be in the top 10%, 234,769 per year. And if you want to get crazy, let's just, let's reach for the stars here. If you want to be in the top 1% of earners, you'd need a household income of $631,500 per year.

And by the way, I did not pull these numbers out of my tukus. These came from the fine folks over at DQYDJ who have created some cool little calculators to figure this stuff out, which is based on data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, yada, yada, yada, you don't care. You just want to know your boy is sourced. That's exactly what I want. Now, if you're in a lower income percentile, don't worry. you can still build wealth on a modest salary. But remember that your income is your greatest wealth-building tool.

Because when you're creating financial margin, there are two levers you can pull. You can spend less and you can earn more. But there's only so much you can cut back, right? At some point, you need to make more money if you want to be able to invest more and grow that money. But while income is important, it's not really the most accurate way to measure your wealth. Because it's not the full picture. You could be making six figures and still be broke as a joke because you're spending it all on car payments for your cyber truck

and unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks at Olive Garden. And I know, that is a wild example, that there could be a guy out there in crippling debt for a cyber truck who also loves Olive Garden, but in my mind, there's a Venn diagram where that beautiful man exists. Or woman. I've just, I've never seen a woman make a decision that poorly. And you'll never know if I'm talking about Olive Garden or the cyber truck.

It's both. You know what? I'm proud of my life. Now, we'll talk about the best way to measure wealth in just a bit. But first, let's look at the numbers around people's emergency savings. Now, we couldn't get our hands on the exact numbers here, but we can make some estimations based on the stats we do have. And let me tell you, in this category, the bar is about as low as my self-esteem in a crowded sauna.

Why is a sauna crowded? Why are there so many people in my sauna? I didn't invite these people. For example, only 49% of Americans said they have at least $1,000 in savings for emergencies, which means about half of America has less than $1,000. saved or even zero saved. So we'll say to be in the top 50% in terms of emergency savings, you'd need to have about $1,000. That's right, just 10 Benjamins or one Grover Cleveland, but those are out of circulation. You know, they did Grover dirty on that one. Cleveland rocks.

We also know that among those who have an emergency fund, the median balance is $10,000. So just estimating here, if roughly half of America doesn't have an emergency fund of at least the thousand bucks and half of those who do have 10,000 or more, then I'm going to say somewhere around 10,000 bucks would put you in the top 25% when it comes to emergency savings. And we will continue with our educated guessing and say to be in the top 10%, you'd likely need to have around $20,000 or more in emergency savings. And to be in the top 1%, again, no hard data here, but let's call it $50,000 to $100,000 or more would put you in the top 1%.

Again, more of an educated guess than a fact, but you asked for my guess. And there it is. I don't remember that. Now, keep in mind, most people don't need to have $50,000 or $100,000 save for emergencies. That's ridiculous. I recommend having an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses, not income, once you have all of your consumer debt paid off. So this begs the question, why are Americans so bad at having an emergency fund?

I'll tell you. It's because they're not living on less than they make, and they're going into debt, which robs their ability to save for the future. And the average American debt per U.S. adult is 68,100. $170. And the average American monthly debt payment is $1,237. That sucks. And to make this visual, let's check out this graph from the New York Fed. All right, we are looking at household debt and credit report. This is from Q1 of 2025. So as you can see here, this is from the Center for Micro Economic Data, not macro. We don't do macro here, just micro. Household debt and credit report. Household debt hits 18.2 trillion. Student loan delinquencies jump. Things are going great for America. You can see here we've got the total debt balance. The red is non-housing debt. The blue is housing debt.

And as you can see, we're going back to 04. Simpler times, back in 04. But things started getting rocky as we headed towards the 2008 crisis. And then we leveled out. People actually realized, hey, maybe I shouldn't be in crippling debt. So the number actually went down periodically until about 2013 into 2014. And then we began the Miley Cyrus climb. Look at this.

Oh, boy. And then, Kofi, Kobe. and we decided let's punch it up a little bit more, and now we're at the peak of Mount Everest here, heading in the 2025, with $5 trillion in non-housing debt, $13.2 trillion in housing debt. Yikes, I don't know about you. I don't want to be a part of that mountain. And if this sounds like you, if this looks like you, it's time to live on less than you make and get on a budget. And if you want some help with that, check out my favorite budgeting app called Every Dollar, because it can coach you towards debt freedom and towards breathing room. I'll drop a link in

the description for you to go download that. Okay, let's look at the stats. now around retirement savings. Now, when I say retirement savings, I'm talking about the money people have in their 401ks, their IRAs, and any other retirement accounts. To be in the top 50% in terms of retirement savings, you'd need to have $13,000 saved up. To be in the top 25%, you'd need to have $122,000 in that nest egg. And to be in the top 10%, $460,000 in retirement savings. And to be in the top 1% if we're really reaching for the stars, you'd need to have a total nest egg, of $2,290,000. Now, if you've been investing but you're still nowhere near those numbers,

don't worry, don't freak out. It takes time for compound growth to do its thing. You don't need to invest $2 million to have $2 million. You just need time to let compound growth work its magic. Let me show you something that'll blow your mind here. I'm going to pop over to our Ramsey investment calculator, and here's the deal. Let's say you're 35 years old and you have nothing safe for retirement.

So current age 35, $0 in investments. you're making the median household income of $80,610 per year. And you follow the plan, you get out of debt, you get the emergency fund, you're ready to invest 15% of that income. That's about $1,000 a month. So how much to contribute monthly? $1,000. Now, as far as annual return,

let's just look at the overall track history of the S&P 500, which is the top 500 companies in the U.S. stock market. Let's see. 10 years later, at 45 years old, let's see how much money you'd have with that 10% rate of return. little over 200 grand all right not bad pretty good so far you've contributed 120 grand 84, of that was just straight up compound growth but after 20 years let's see what happens you're now 55 years old and you have 759,000 dollars in that one account and again 240,000 was contributions

519,000 was growth let's step it up let's see what happens after 30 years you're now 65 hopefully on the cusp of a wonderful retirement, and you have $2.26 million. And here's the cool part. Remember, you only put in $360,000 of your own money. The rest, over $1.9 million, was just compound growth. You didn't do anything except invest consistently. So here's the deal. When it comes to building wealth, time is your best friend. It's your greatest asset, even though it is your worst enemy in other situations, like the toss-up round on Wheel of Fortune.

That one can be stressful. mythological hero achilles. What? Okay, let's move on to net worth. In my opinion, this is the best way to measure a person's wealth, because it takes into account the whole financial picture, not just how much you're making or how much you have saved. Net worth is simply what you own minus what you owe,

your assets minus liabilities. So, for example, if you have $100,000 in assets but you have $50,000 in debt, your net worth is $50,000, $100 minus $50. And to be in the top 50% of Americans, you'd need to have a net worth of $192,084. To be in the top 25%, you'd need to have a net worth of $658,340. And top 10%, here it is, your net worth would need to be $1,920,758. And what would it take to be in the top 1% of Americans when it comes to net worth?

Well, I'll tell you. But first, let's talk about the top 1% of bed sheets, because it exists. And likely, you're sleeping on the other 99%, which is fine, but you can. could do better. I'm talking about the bamboo sheets from Cozy Earth, a sponsor of today's video. Now, I don't know if there's an official rating system for betting, but these sheets have got to be at the top because they are insanely comfortable. These bad boys are temperature regulating, moisture wicking, and they are hands down the best sheets I have ever slept on, and my French Bulldogs agree. So what's the secret here? Well, they're made from premium viscos from bamboo,

which makes it feel like your bed just got upgraded to first class. So try them out for yourself, and if you don't like them, return them hassle-free. And Cozy Earth is hooking you up with an exclusive 40% off when you use the promo code George at checkout. So head to cozyearth.com slash George or use the link in the description to grab yours today. Okay, where were we? Top 1% of Americans when it comes to net worth. Here's the big number.

Ready for it? Take a deep breath. Let it out. Breathe into your pelvis. Breathe out from your spleen. Don't die on me. Stay with me. You would need a net worth of $13,66,76,778.

And I hope, I pray, that there's someone out there who has a net worth of $13,666,777, who goes, dang it, I missed the cusp. I needed one more dollar to be in the 1%, and now I'm in the 1.0000%? Nope, that would just be 1%. Trick question. Missed it by that much. You can add as many zeros as you want, bro.

Just add a 1 at the end of that, and then it would work. Now, you probably don't have a $13 million net worth. you probably don't even have a million dollar net worth. And that's okay. These things take time. As long as you're doing the right things with your money, like avoiding debt, living below your means, and investing consistently,

your net worth is going to look very different 10 years from now. And 20 years from now, even better. And by the way, if you never accumulate a $13 million net worth, who gives a rat's took us? Just focus on living your best life with the net worth you have today. But let me paint you a picture for fun with our net worth calculator to show you just what's possible here. So let's say you're following the Rams

baby steps, which I hope you do. And it takes you five years to pay off all of your debt and build your fully funded emergency fund. And then you begin investing 15% of your income. Well, think about it. 15 years from now, if you follow this plan, you have a 15 year fixed rate mortgage, which is now paid off. And you have a house that's worth $500,000. So let's add that to the real estate side here. Boom. There we go. We're already climbing. And in checking, let's say you got $5,000 in there to cover your monthly expenses. Savings, let's say you have $30,000 for that fully funded emergency fund, sitting in a high-yield savings account. And then let's move on to retirement. If you've been investing 15% of the average household income for around a decade at that 10% return, you'd have

around $200,000. And then we're going to move on to the cars. You've got two paid four cars in this example that have a total value of $30,000. We're going to add that to our net worth as well. And then other assets, you can include anything like your Pokemon cards worth $14,000. USD. We're going to add that in there too. Now, that covered the assets, and if we scroll down to liabilities, you'll remember you don't got none because you followed the baby steps. You're completely debt-free house and everything, which just makes your net worth even sweeter, nothing to subtract. That puts your net worth at $765,000, which puts you, if you remember, in the top 25% of Americans, and you'd be well on your way to the top 10% as those retirement savings

continue to grow thanks to your consistent investing and the power of compound growth. So now that you know how you stack up, assuming you know your own income, savings, and net worth, what's the big takeaway here? Well, here it is. Who cares? Yeah, that's right. Who cares what percentile you're in? Stop worrying about what other people have.

Take some time to decide what's important to you and create your own version of financial peace. Because life is not about trying to acquire more money than the next guy. It is so much more than that. There are people out there with a super high net worth who are miserable. They have terrible relationships, no friends, jobs they hate. And then you've got people who love the work they do. They've got modest means, modest incomes, and they're living incredible, fulfilling lives. So when it comes to your finances, it's not about hitting a certain dollar amount or a certain net worth.

It's about peace, margin, options, and freedom. And the byproduct of all of that is, yes, eventually you will become what we call a Baby Steps Millionaire. This whole Ramsey plan is really about having the ability to be generous and to weather life storms, because that's going to reduce your risk, reduce your stress, and increase your peace and increase your joy. So choose your own goals, use the tools that I've shown you in this video to help you reach those goals. And if you want to check out the numbers for yourself, I will link all the calculators in the description so you can play around with it. And if you want to know how much you should have in your 401K based on your age, keep watching this next video by clicking it or use the link in the description below. Don't forget to hit those like and subscribe buttons and share this video with Bernie Sanders because he can't seem to stop talking about the 1%.

I don't give a rats took us about the 1%. Good soup! Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Love you, Bernie.