In an era dominated by headlines about tech billionaires, Wall Street titans, and celebrity entrepreneurs, a quieter group is quietly claiming a larger share of America’s top incomes. Economists Owen Zidar of Princeton University and Eric Zwick of the University of Chicago call them the “stealthy wealthy.” These individuals—often owners of medium-sized, regional businesses—generate substantial wealth through everyday, unglamorous enterprises rather than flashy startups or high-finance deals.
According to their analysis of anonymized U.S. tax data spanning 2000 to 2022, business ownership has become the single largest source of income for the nation’s highest earners. For the top 1% of income earners (roughly those making at least $550,000 annually, excluding capital gains), business ownership accounted for 34.9% of total income in 2022, up from 30.3% in 2014. The trend is even more pronounced at the very top: among the top 0.1% (with incomes starting around $2.3 million in 2022), it rose to 43.1% from 37.3% over the same period. This shift has outpaced traditional high-income sectors like finance, making “boring” Main Street businesses the dominant path to elite earnings.
Who are these stealthy wealthy individuals? They are typically self-made entrepreneurs or family-business operators who run companies in practical, essential niches. Their operations solve routine problems that people and institutions face repeatedly—problems so ordinary they rarely attract attention or glamour. These business owners often live modestly, avoiding ostentatious displays of wealth to maintain privacy, minimize expectations from others, and allow their money to compound quietly over time.
The road to riches, as one profile put it, is paved with seemingly mundane items: cup holders, burgers, and miles of elementary school carpeting. Real-world examples illustrate the pattern vividly.
Derek Olson, for instance, built his fortune manufacturing specialized flooring equipment used to remove old carpet and flooring. U.S. elementary schools, with an average of seven miles of carpeting each, typically redo floors every summer to maintain safety and appearance. This creates a predictable, recurring demand in a niche market with limited competition. Olson started small, scaled his company, and now earns enough to place him firmly in the top 1% while enjoying a low-key lifestyle that includes family vacations in Europe.
Another standout is David MacNeil, founder of WeatherTech. Spotting a gap in the U.S. market for high-quality, custom-fit rubber floor mats for vehicles, he began importing and selling them from his garage. The business grew into a major U.S.-based manufacturer employing around 1,800 people, with projected annual revenue nearing $800 million. What began as a practical solution to dirty car interiors became a reliable, scalable enterprise.
Other common examples include auto dealerships, beverage distributors, grocery stores, HVAC and plumbing services, dental practices, law firms, hazard waste management, restoration companies, and suppliers for everyday items like cup holders or fast-food components. These businesses thrive on steady, essential demand—things that break, wear out, or need regular replacement—combined with high barriers to entry once established, such as specialized equipment, long-term customer relationships, or regulatory expertise.
What sets the stealthy wealthy apart is not just their industries but their approach. They identify persistent hassles in daily life, develop reliable solutions, start modestly (often with cold calls, personal savings, or second mortgages), and grow privately without chasing venture capital, public offerings, or media spotlight. Their success echoes the timeless lessons from the 1996 book The Millionaire Next Door—living below one’s means, prioritizing business reinvestment over consumption, and focusing on execution—but is now backed by hard tax-data evidence showing private business ownership as the leading driver of top-tier wealth.
Zidar and Zwick, who are authoring a book titled Who is Really Rich in America and How They Got There, argue that this group highlights a replicable, if unsexy, playbook: target ordinary problems, deliver consistent value, and build quietly. In doing so, they demonstrate that some of the largest fortunes at the top of the income pyramid come not from innovation in the spotlight, but from mastery of the mundane. As economic inequality debates continue, the rise of the stealthy wealthy reminds us that America’s wealth engine still runs powerfully on Main Street, one practical business at a time.
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