Life

How Many of the Wealthiest Americans Are Women?

And today in sobering one percenter news, we have this: A gorgeous map displaying the richest people in America by state. The real estate magicians over at Movoto scoured Forbes and Celebrity Net Worth for data about the wealthiest people living in all 50 states in the U.S. — and, both unsurprisingly and dishearteningly, most of them are men. Siiiiiiiigh.

According to the map, only nine women top their state’s list of wealthiest denizens. In order from most ridiculous to slightly less ridiculous, they are:

  1. Christy Walton in Wyoming: $37.9 billion
  2. Alice Walton in Texas: $35.3 billion
  3. Jacqueline Mars in Virginia: $20 billion
  4. Abigail Johnson in Massachusetts: $18.2 billion
  5. Anne Cox Chambers in Georgia: $16.1 billion
  6. Gayle Cook in Indiana: $6 billion
  7. Mary Alice Dorace Malone in Pennsylvania: $3 billion
  8. Anita Zucker in South Carolina: $2.7 billion
  9. Marguerite Harbert in Alabama: $1 billion

Other things that do not surprise me include the fact that the top to slots belong to the Waltons. Yawwwwwwwn.

Although you do sort of have to wonder if they have any opinion on that whole ice cream sandwich debacle.

Anyway, what is sort of interesting, though, are the number of women on Forbes’ list of the richest women in America from 2013 who didn’t make the cut. Among them are:

  • Laurene Powell Jobs: Steve Jobs’ widow. At $11.7 billion, she’s the richest woman in Silicon Valley, but not in California — the title there goes to Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison, who is worth $49.4 billion.
  • Elaine Marshall: She’s part of the Koch family and worth $8.6 billion, but the majority of Koch Industries is owned by Charles and David Koch. At $41.4 billion, David is the wealthiest person in New York.
  • Randa Duncan Williams: The eldest daughter of pipeline entrepreneur Dan Duncan, Williams is worth $5.5 billion; however, she lives in Texas. That’s Alice Walton’s territory.

For the curious, Movoto determined that generally, each of these fabulously wealthy people achieved their fortunes in one of three ways: They’re entrepreneurs, heirs or heiresses, or widows. About half of the folks featured on the map founded companies; and as far as inheritance goes, well, there’s no clearer example of this method in action than the Waltons. Interestingly, education doesn’t seem to have too much of a bearing on wealth; after all, Bill Gates, far and away the wealthiest person in the country with a net worth of $800 billion, dropped out of college.

Still, though. If there’s ever been proof that the gender wage gap exists, this is it — and it’s proof that it happens all across the spectrum, all the way up to the upper echelons of society. Your move, economy.

Check out the map below, and head on over to Movoto for another eye-opening map that highlights how the net worth of all these super rich people contrasts with the average wealth of the nation.

Images: Giphy; Movoto