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If it feels like the rich keep getting richer, the latest numbers suggest you’re not imagining it. America’s billionaire class saw one of its biggest wealth surges in recent memory last year.

U.S. billionaires added roughly $1.5 trillion to their collective wealth in 2025, pushing their total fortunes from about $6.7 trillion to $8.2 trillion. This marks a 22% jump in just one year, according to a report published by Americans for Tax Fairness, based on an analysis of Forbes data (1).

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The number of billionaires also grew 15%, from 814 to 935.

Zoom out globally, and the trend looks even more dramatic. Worldwide billionaire wealth hit a record $15.8 trillion in 2025, driven by business creation, AI-driven gains and a massive wave of inheritance (2).

Meanwhile, working-class Americans are struggling.

All told, 24% of American households are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a Bank of America Institute study (3). Millennials and Gen Xers were especially vulnerable compared to other demographics. Meanwhile, the savings rate for Americans, measured as the percentage of disposable income left after other expenses are covered, has stayed low at just 3.6% (4).

What’s more, a survey conducted by the Century Foundation found that 24% of Americans skipped treatment and medication last year in order to save money (5). The same survey found that 34% said they skipped a meal in the past year — up from 25% in an earlier poll conducted just months prior.

As working-class households across the country struggle to remain afloat, the ultra-wealthy are pulling further ahead.

Wealth gains in 2025 were far from evenly distributed. Although markets rose overall, a larger share of those gains went to households at the very top — deepening an already pronounced concentration of wealth.

In the third quarter of last year, America’s top 1%, which includes millionaires, owned 31.7% of all U.S. wealth, the biggest share recorded since the Fed started tracking this data in 1989 (6). That translates to roughly $55 trillion in assets — about the same amount held by the bottom 90% combined.

Adding to the imbalance, Oxfam International reported that billionaire wealth expanded three times faster in 2025, following President Donald Trump’s election win, than its average growth rate over the previous five years (7).

But if you’re struggling to get ahead yourself, there are lessons to be learned from the investing strategies used by the wealthy.

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For billionaires, wealth isn’t just earned — it hums along quietly in the background, compounding over time.

Some of that growth comes from appreciating assets, which aren’t taxed unless they’re sold.

The biggest source of wealth for the ultra-rich isn’t a paycheck — it’s stocks. The top 10% of Americans hold more than 87% of stocks and mutual fund shares (8).

This means that under current law, a significant portion of billionaire income can go untaxed indefinitely. Many simply borrow against their stock holdings instead, allowing them to access liquidity without triggering a tax bill.

Real estate also offers similar advantages. Investors with vast property holdings often use 1031 exchanges and depreciation write-offs to dramatically reduce their tax burden.

While most Americans don’t have that kind of asset base, smart investments and financial planning can still help grow and compound wealth.

But sorting through which assets you can tap, and how, can have a steep learning curve — whether you’re a retail investor working with a 60/40 portfolio split between stocks and bonds, or just starting out.

If the world of alternative assets, or even just stocks, makes your head spin, a financial advisor can help you build a strategy that works for your situation. Research from Envestnet has also found that those who work with a financial expert can see up to 3% higher returns (9). Over 30 or 40 years, that can compound into serious gains.

One option is to work with Advisor.com to quickly match with a vetted FINRA/SEC-registered advisor near you for free.

Just enter a few details about your finances and goals, and Advisor.com’s AI-powered matching tool will connect you with a qualified expert suited to your unique financial needs and goals. The platform’s advisors are fiduciaries, meaning they are legally obligated to act in your best interest.

Hiring a financial advisor can be a lifelong commitment. That’s why Advisor.com lets you set up a free, no-obligation consultation with your match to see if you’re on the same page.

If you'd prefer to try your hand at stock picking yourself, you may want to tap established resources as you self direct your portfolio.

That’s where the experts at Moby can help you get started. They offer professional research and recommendations to help you identify strong, long-term investments backed by advice from former hedge fund analysts.

In four years, and across almost 400 stock picks, their recommendations have beaten the S&P 500 by almost 12% on average. They also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Moby’s team spends hundreds of hours sifting through financial news and data to provide you with stock and crypto reports delivered straight to you. Their research keeps you up-to-the-minute on market shifts, and can help you reduce the guesswork behind choosing stocks and ETFs.

Plus, their reports are easy to understand for beginners, so you can become a smarter investor in just five minutes.

While stock markets play a big role, one of the biggest lessons from billionaire portfolios is something surprisingly simple: diversification beyond public stocks.

In the U.S., about 30% of total wealth is held in real estate, making property the second-largest asset category after financial securities (10).

Since real estate doesn’t always move in sync with the stock market, it can help buffer a portfolio during periods of volatility. And when inflation rises, property values often increase as well, reflecting higher construction and land costs. Rents tend to increase as well, providing income that can keep pace with inflation.

That said, you don’t need billionaire status — or a large slice of your portfolio — to build wealth through real estate.

Crowdfunding platforms like Arrived allow you to invest in shares of vacation and rental properties across the country with as little as $100.

To get started, simply browse through their selection of vetted properties, each picked for their potential appreciation and income generation.

Arrived distributes any rental income generated by properties to investors monthly, allowing you to potentially set up a passive income stream without the extra work that comes with being a landlord of your own rental property.

What’s more, once you’re an investor with Arrived, you gain quarterly access to their newly launched secondary market, where investors can buy and sell shares of individual rental and vacation rental properties directly on the platform.

The best part? For a limited time, when you open an account and add $1,000 or more, Arrived will credit your account with a 1% match.

Another option is mogul — a real estate investment platform offering fractional ownership in blue-chip rental properties.

Founded by former Goldman Sachs real estate investors, mogul hand-picks the top 1% of single-family rental homes nationwide for you.

This way, you can invest in institutional quality offerings for a fraction of the usual cost — while receiving monthly rental income, real-time appreciation and tax benefits.

Each property undergoes a vetting process, requiring a minimum 12% return even in downside scenarios. Across the board, the platform features an average annual IRR of 18.8%. Their cash-on-cash yields, meanwhile, average between 10 to 12% annually. Offerings often sell out in under three hours, with investments typically ranging between $15,000 and $40,000 per property.

Getting started is a quick and easy process. You can sign up for an account and then browse available properties. Once you verify your information with their team, you can invest like a mogul in just a few clicks.

The massive $1.5 trillion jump in billionaire wealth highlights a growing wealth gap — but it also reveals something useful. The ultra wealthy aren’t relying on one magic investment. If anything, billionaires are experts at diversifying outside of traditional markets through their sheer volume of available capital.

And there’s one globally recognized asset class that has low correlation with the S&P 500. It also tends to hold value well while appreciating over time.

In fact, high-net-worth individuals are adding more and more of this kind of alternative asset to their portfolios, jumping to 20% in 2025 — up from 15% the year before. Those with assets of over $50 million saw a more significant leap, up to 28% (11).

The choice asset in question? Post-war and contemporary art.

Until recently, this world was off limits to most retail investors. After all, finding a way to purchase a historically significant painting once relied on a complex network of curators, appraisors and galleries.

But now, Masterworks has opened the door to investing in art for retail investors — with more than 70,000 users following suit since 2019. Now, it’s possible to own fractional shares of works by Banksy, Basquiat, Picasso and more — depending on availability.

Masterworks has sold 25 artworks so far, yielding net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6% and 17.8% among assets held for longer than a year.

Even better, Moneywise readers can get priority access to diversify with art and skip the waitlist to see what’s on offer.

Note that Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. You can see important Regulation A disclosures at Masterworks.com/cd

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We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.

Americans for Tax Fairness (1); UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report (2); Bank of America Institute (3); The Bureau of Economic Analysis (4); The Century Foundation (5); CBS (6); Oxfam (7); CNBC (8); Envestnet (9); UBS Global Wealth Report (10); The Art Basel & UBS (11)

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.