Number of millionaires has dropped by 40% since the recession started

Most people assume the top 1% are all millionaires. That isn't true. The IRS put the figure at 343,927 in annual income in 2009. The number is undoubtedly lower now. The top 1% has been hit harder by the recession, on an income percentage basis, than the lower other 99%. The number of millionaires nationally has dropped by 40%.

In 2009, the Internal Revenue Service set the minimum threshold for the top 1 percent of all wage-earners at $343,927 in annual income.

The number of Ohio taxpayers in that group fell by 24 percent during the recession, from more than 62,000 in 2007 to less than 47,000 in 2009, according to state tax data.

Rich hurt by market

The drop in their collective adjusted gross incomes was even more dramatic, plunging 47 percent to $68.4 billion from $128.5 billion.

The rich, especially millionaires, have been hurt by volatility in the stock market because they derive so much of their income from investments and capital gains, which include sales from stocks, real estate and bonds, economists said.

“There actually was a 43 percent decline of millionaires in Ohio, and nationally, the decline was 40 percent, so we are just mirroring the country,” said Gary Gudmundson, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Taxation.