America’s Main Street millionaires collectively control more wealth and political influence than the billionaires who dominate public attention, according to a new study of the country’s richest private-business owners.
Their fortunes have been built not only in technology or finance, but through car dealerships, dental practices, restaurants, law firms, manufacturing companies, consultancy businesses and even waxing salons.
Economists Eric Zwick and Owen Zidar argue in their book, The Everywhere Millionaire, that this largely overlooked group is central to understanding the rise of inequality in the United States.
They estimate that about three million private-business owners each have an average net worth of roughly 25 million dollars. Collectively, the group has more than 13 times the wealth of the Forbes 400, the annual ranking of America’s richest people.
Unlike the billionaire founders and investors who regularly feature in national political debates, these wealthy owners are spread across hundreds of communities. The authors describe them as the “stealthy wealthy”, while also jokingly referring to some as “middle-garchs” because of their influence as politically protected intermediaries.
How private businesses fuelled the rise of the wealthy
The research centres on so-called pass-through businesses, including sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations. Their profits are passed directly to their owners, who pay tax through their personal returns rather than through a separate corporate tax system.
Pass-through businesses accounted for about a fifth of US business income in 1980. By 2011, they generated more than half, overtaking traditional corporations as the main source of business income.
Zwick and Zidar say these companies have accounted for more than half of the increase in the share of income received by the top 1 per cent since the 1980s. The same pattern applies to the top 0.1 per cent.
Their findings were made possible by a large dataset assembled by Zidar, Zwick and Danny Yagan while they were working at the US Treasury in 2014. The economists linked records covering more than 11 million private businesses with information on more than 22 million owners.
That allowed them to examine how wealthy Americans made their money, rather than simply measuring how much income reached the top of the distribution.
The results challenged expectations that the modern equivalent of the industrial tycoons of the 19th century would be concentrated in technology, energy and high finance. Legal and financial services were the two leading sources of pass-through income among the top 1 per cent, followed by car dealers and consultants.
Restaurants, accountants, manufacturing businesses and dental practices also featured prominently. The authors found that many of these fortunes depended heavily on the owners’ professional expertise and reputation, rather than only on money invested in buildings, equipment or other assets.
When an owner retired or died, profits from their pass-through business typically fell by about three-quarters, according to the research. That suggested the owner’s skills, or “human capital”, were often the key asset.
Tax rules and political influence
The economists trace much of the expansion of pass-through businesses to the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The legislation reduced individual tax rates below the corporate rate, creating an incentive for business owners to structure their companies so that profits were taxed as personal income.
In 2011, pass-through income faced an average federal income tax rate of about 20 per cent, compared with almost 32 per cent for traditional corporations, according to an earlier analysis by the economists.
The authors argue that the tax advantage can remain significant. A doctor who owns a private practice, for example, may pay considerably less tax than a doctor employed by a hospital while carrying out broadly similar work.
Some Main Street millionaires have also benefited from regulations that limit competition. The book points to doctors’ groups seeking to restrict the supply of medical providers, alcohol distributors protected as intermediaries between producers and retailers, and estate agents defending their commissions.
Car dealerships are presented as a particularly powerful example. State franchise laws in many parts of America restrict manufacturers from selling directly to customers, protecting dealerships’ position between carmakers and consumers.
Dealers also have money, local influence and large workforces. Their businesses often sponsor community events and sports teams, while their owners can become important donors and constituents for politicians.
That influence has helped the dealership model withstand challenges from companies seeking to sell vehicles directly to customers. The authors cite Elon Musk’s attempts to bypass dealerships with Tesla as an example of a billionaire struggling against a dispersed and politically entrenched business class.
The same contrast appeared in tax policy. While Musk spent heavily supporting Donald Trump’s election and later served in his administration, legislation signed by Mr Trump removed federal tax credits for electric vehicles while making permanent a deduction allowing many pass-through owners to reduce taxable business income by up to 20 per cent.
Business owners in public office
Main Street millionaires do not only influence politicians from outside government. They are also significantly overrepresented in elected office.
Business owners account for about 3 per cent of the US population, but the authors say people worth at least 10 million dollars are more than ten times as likely to serve in Congress as their share of the population would suggest. Those worth at least 100 million dollars are 62 times as likely.
At state level, 40 per cent of legislators in 2023 and 2024 came from business backgrounds, rising further when lawyers and doctors who owned their own practices were included. Twenty-one state legislators were car dealers.
The authors stress that wealth and business experience do not automatically make someone unsuitable for public office. But they warn that owning a business while shaping the rules governing it can create potential conflicts of interest.
They cite Bob Corker, the former Republican senator for Tennessee and a wealthy property developer, who supported the 2017 tax cuts after a provision benefiting owners of property-related limited liability companies was inserted into the legislation. Mr Corker denied the accusations that he had benefited from a provision dubbed the “Corker kickback”.
Another example is Michael J. Madigan, the former Illinois House speaker and wealthy lawyer who maintained a private practice while holding office. He was convicted on federal corruption charges in 2025 over schemes involving the use of political power to steer business towards his law firm.
The authors’ wider argument is that America’s concentration of wealth and power cannot be understood by focusing only on its most famous billionaires. The country’s less visible business owners are more numerous, more geographically dispersed and, taken together, potentially more influential than the public conversation suggests.
