WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., May 15, 2003: The image of the wealthy Non-Resident India (NRI) from America is poised to get a puffy boost following estimates from the investment firm Merrill Lynch that there are 200,000 millionaires of Indian origin in the United States alone. That may seem like a staggering count because out of their total population of 1.8 million, it would mean one in every nine Indians in the US is a millionaire. Company executives clarified in an interview that the count includes not just NRIs but all people of Indian-origin; the estimate was made at the height of the 2000 technology bubble (an important and likely distorting factor) and the definition of a millionaire is broad enough to include all assets including home ownership. Still, the 200,000 Indian-origin “Merrill Millionaires,” along with their less wealthy NRIs, carry the median American NRI income to over US$60,000 (compared to the national average of $38,885), making it the wealthiest immigrant group in the United States, say Merrill Lynch executives. The United States has an estimated 2.1 million millionaires, which is less than one percent of its population (about 280 million) compared to the nearly 10 per cent for the Indian-Americans. If the definition of Indian-Americans is expanded to cover all people of Indian origin, it would still suggest a higher percentage of millionaires among the particular ethnic group.
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