I would be interested in reading any papers or studies that support that statement. Because of where I live I happen to know quite a few people who are in the "upper 10%" some probably better than that, and pretty much they universally spend more on maintaining one or more additional real properties, a plane or boat with its maintenance, and generally many more days out of the year travelling and paying for hotels/meals etc than what I consider "average". Sure they shop at the same grocery stores as everyone else, and they don't necessarily spend any more on those groceries, but they do eat out more and at places that I would not consider "budget". In general, their lifestyle has a higher "burn rate" than people for whom such an expenditure rate would result in a rapid decline of their net worth.
But the problem with the original article (which was pointed out elsewhere that the number could be arrived at by multiplying the median salary of $55K by 60 years, is that without the methodology by which they reached the number, and statistics that better describe the "shape" of the data set, its kind of hard to take anything away from the statement of "$3.3M on average" that is at all meaningful.
But the problem with the original article (which was pointed out elsewhere that the number could be arrived at by multiplying the median salary of $55K by 60 years, is that without the methodology by which they reached the number, and statistics that better describe the "shape" of the data set, its kind of hard to take anything away from the statement of "$3.3M on average" that is at all meaningful.