Survey source: https://www.aboutschwab.com/modern-wealth-survey-2022

It's interesting to compare against pre-pandemic versions of the survey [1]. In the national survey, the 2019 "wealth" number is actually slightly higher in 2019 compared to 2022. On the other hand, the Bay Area number is higher in 2022.

[1] https://www.aboutschwab.com/modernwealth2019

Cool, only $4.99 million to go.

This is pretty meaningless. It’s based on a survey and not any objective criteria for an (arbitrary but fit for this purpose) definition of “wealthy”.