Pennsylvania is seeing a big jump in the number of millionaires. The Keystone State now ranks ninth in the country for the most residents earning more than a million dollars a year. That's according to the latest data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Between 2020 and 2021, over 27,000 residents in Pennsylvania saw their adjusted gross income rise to more than a million dollars. That's a whopping 47% increase! The IRS says this big jump is due to the growth of the stock market and rising salaries, which have been boosted by the labor shortage after the pandemic.
But Pennsylvania isn't the only state seeing more millionaires. New Jersey also saw a rise in the number of millionaires, with a 5.4% increase between 2019 and 2020. The IRS data showed that 23,950 tax returns were filed in New Jersey with $1 million or more in adjusted gross income in 2020. That's up from 22,720 the year before.
One reason for the increase in high earners could be people moving to the Philadelphia area from more expensive cities like New York and Washington, D.C. during the pandemic. With more people able to work remotely, they're choosing to live in places where the cost of living is lower. This has also led to a rise in home prices in the region.
Across the country, the number of millionaires increased by 9.8% from 2019 to 2020. That's when 608,540 people reported earning an adjusted gross income of $1 million or more, according to the IRS data.
But even with this increase, millionaires still make up only a small fraction of tax filers. They made up 0.2% in Pennsylvania and Delaware, 0.5% in New Jersey, and 0.3% nationwide.