3 Money Moves Wealthy Americans Make Differently Than the Middle Class
It’s not easy defining “middle class” and “wealthy” in the United States because so many variables are involved, ranging from your income and location to how much money you have stowed away.
For example, a SmartAsset analysis of 2024 Census Bureau data found median yearly incomes ranged from a low of $59,127 in Mississippi to a high of $104,828 in Massachusetts — a difference of nearly $46,000. Someone who earns a high salary in a pricey city like Boston might have much less actual “wealth” than a lower-salaried person in a small Mississippi town.
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Perhaps a better way to gauge the differences between wealthy and middle-class Americans is to look at what they spend their money on.
Here are three purchases that quietly separate the middle class from the wealthy.
Income-Producing Assets
This purchase category was cited by Chad Cummings, an attorney and certified public accountant (CPA) at Cummings & Cummings Law who previously worked in finance and tax.
“Wealthy clients buy appreciating or income-producing assets — ideally assets that do both — including businesses and real estate,” Cummings told MoneyLion. “In other words, they are exchanging cash for future cash flow. Those purchases can generate cash flow while appreciation compounds, which is a win-win. These purchases can also generate taxable losses to reduce the current year’s tax bill.”
By contrast, he said, middle-class households “often concentrate their discretionary spending on cars, boats, electronics and other status purchases that lose value immediately, don’t generate cash flow and don’t generate tax deductions. In other words, they are trading cash for liabilities with no offsetting economic benefit, now or in the future.”
Multimillion-Dollar IRAs
Whether you believe an individual retirement account (IRA) represents a purchase depends on your definition of “purchase.” In any case, an IRA is an asset you get in exchange for money, which is not much different from buying a second home or valuable art collection.
Most Americans feel good if they push their IRA balance into six figures. The average IRA balance was $131,380 during the 2026 first quarter, according to an analysis from Fidelity.
But the wealthy can pour millions (or even billions) into an IRA with little notice or fanfare — and often do to reap the tax benefits.
As ProPublica reported, billionaire venture capitalist and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel amassed a $5 billion Roth IRA to help “shield” his income from taxes. Questions were raised about whether the move ran afoul of IRS rules, but it was never legally challenged and Thiel reaped “billions” in untaxed gains.
Service Contracts
Wealthy Americans have the financial wherewithal to hire others to handle housework, errands and other tasks as a way of freeing up more time to produce income and build assets. Most middle-class households don’t have that luxury.
“[The wealthy] measure time by thinking about the money they would miss earning as lost opportunity — not by the amount they are paying for someone else to handle it,” Cummings said. “The return on time can exceed the cost several times over.”
This concept is “closely related” to opportunity cost, he added. “A $90,000 vehicle does not merely cost $90,000. It also destroys the future return that capital could have earned. That is the time value of money in a nutshell. Repeating that mistake every five years can create a seven-figure or more wealth gap over a lifetime.”
This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.
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