The myth-buster’s guide to the “millionaire exodus” scare story

Millionaires are staying where they are, despite over 18000 news pieces published around the world since the start of 2024 claiming otherwise.

The news reporting is largely based on a report by golden passport sellers Henley & Partners, and has resulted in the UK government giving more generous tax breaks to some of the wealthiest households.

We’ve put together this short guide to help cut through the noise.

Less than 1% – that’s how many millionaires are supposedly leaving

News reporting about millionaires leaving almost always present numbers but not percentages. For example, the 16,500 millionaires supposedly leaving the UK is less than 1% of UK millionaires. When put into perspective, the number of millionaires supposedly leaving is statistically insignificant. This has been consistently the case at a global level since 2013, when the claims began.

The report’s author admits his data is “skewed” but won’t make it public

The author of the Henley report has publicly acknowledged the data behind the claims is “skewed” towards much wealthier centi-millionaires and billionaires, which means it’s unrepresentative of millionaires in general and so can’t support the claims in the news. The data is primarily based on where people said they work on social media, not on actual migration. The report author has not made his data public for others to verify.

The report’s definition of “millionaires” leaves out most millionaires

The report defines “millionaires” as people with more than $1 million in liquid assets, which leaves out most millionaires whose main asset is likely to be their home, and focuses on the most mobile millionaires. For the UK, this leaves out 75% of millionaires. This is almost never made clear in news reporting. Even with this narrower definition, the number of “liquid millionaires” leaving are still a tiny percentage: less than 3% of the UK’s “liquid millionaires”.

The report factchecks its own claims about wealth exodus in a footnote

The report makes claims about how much wealth the millionaires supposedly leaving represent, which many news stories have presented as the wealth that will be lost from a country when millionaires move away. The report’s methodology quietly acknowledges this isn’t the case, and that many will keep “much of their wealth” where it is.

Most millionaires support a wealth tax

News reporting has focused on a statistically insignificant number of millionaires supposedly migrating and mostly ignored the 80% of UK millionaires who support a wealth tax (58% across G20 countries).

More extreme wealth shrinks economies

The idea that governments should be worried about superrich individuals leaving misses the point on the harms of extreme wealth. The rise of extreme wealth is directly linked to lower economic productivity, more households going into debt and to people living shorter lives.

Extreme wealth is collected, not earned, and is taxed much less than earned wealth

Most people primarily earn wealth (wages and salaries for work) but the superrich primarily collect wealth (dividends and rent for owing things). Collected wealth is often taxed much less than earned wealth, which helps the superrich get richer faster, which shrinks economies. Wealth taxes end the special treatment wealth collectors get over wealth earners, which is necessary for protecting people, economies and planet.

For a deeper dive, see our report “The millionaire exodus myth”.