1. 15 Signs You Will Be Rich
Attractive men earn 9 percent more money than
unattractive men; attractive women earn 4 percent more
money than unattractive women.
"There is a significant penalty for bad looks among men," write the economists whose
research yielded these statistics. "Men who are viewed as being below average or homely are
penalized" when it comes to wages. Noting that many studies have been done on workplace
discrimination against women and ethnic minorities, these scholars undertook "the first study
of the economics of discrimination in the labor market against yet another group—the ugly."
individuals with above-average IQs are only 1.2 times as
likely as individuals with below-average IQs to have a high
net worth.
Few people with below-average IQs earn high incomes, but relatively large numbers of them
are wealthy, according to the study that yielded this stat. "Smarter people tend to be paid
more, but that doesn't necessarily mean they end up with more wealth," says the study's
author, Ohio State University economics professor Jay Zagorsky. In other words, being smart
about neurosurgery or nuclear fission doesn't necessarily make one smart about money. "I've
known some certifiable geniuses who have been bankrupt."

2. People who were popular in high school earn 10 percent
Few people with below-average IQs earn high incomes, but relatively large numbers of them
are wealthy, according to the study that yielded this stat. "Smarter people tend to be paid
more, but that doesn't necessarily mean they end up with more wealth," says the study's
author, Ohio State University economics professor Jay Zagorsky. In other words, being smart
about neurosurgery or nuclear fission doesn't necessarily make one smart about money. "I've
known some certifiable geniuses who have been bankrupt."
Popularity pays, according to a study examining the effects of what academics call
"friendship nomination"—that is, how many people claim you as their friends, not how many
people you claim as friends. Every friend you had in high school is worth another 2 percent
increase in adult wages. "Shifting somebody from the bottom fifth to the top fifth of the
school popularity distribution—in other words, turning a social reject into a star—would be
predicted to yield him a 10 percent wage advantage," write the economists who conducted
this study.
Graduates of Princeton University and Dartmouth College
earn salaries 162 percent higher, on average, than
graduates of East Texas Baptist University.
Mid-career median salaries for both Princeton and Dartmouth grads are $123,000, according
to the job-market report containing these figures. For ETBU grads, it's $47,000. But that still
beats Coker College grads, who earn $40,300—putting them at the bottom of this survey.
Harvard kids go on to make $121,000, while Brown and Berkeley grads earn $109,000. Who
makes the most? Graduates of Harvey Mudd College, the math-science-engineering arm of
Southern California's Claremont Colleges, at $126,000 a year.
For every three inches taller than average they are,
women earn 5 to 8 percent more money than women of
average height; men earn 4 to 10 percent more for every
extra three inches in height.
The study that includes these figures was done in Australia, where the premiums for added
height are only about half of those in the U.S., according to the authors. "It's definitely easier

3. for taller people to be noticed and to command attention," says Alan Corey, author of A
Million Bucks by 30: How to Overcome a Crap Job, Stingy Parents, and a Useless Degree to
Become a Millionaire Before (or After) Turning 30. "These are two great advantages for
ladder-climbers."
Being married and staying married increases your net
worth by 77 percent.
Divorced people "experience an average wealth drop of 77 percent," according to the study
that yielded this stat, and married people's "wealth increases on average 16 percent per each
year of marriage." "My best advice for those who want to be wealthy is this: Get married.
Stay married," Zagorsky says. Marital status affects children's fates as well: 50 percent of
children who start life poor with married parents who then stay married rise to the middle or
top third of the economic spectrum as adults. Yet only 26 percent of children born poor with
parents who divorce rise to the middle or top, as do 42 percent of children born poor to
unmarried mothers.
Drinkers earn 10 to 14 percent more money than
abstainers.
Drinking leads to higher earnings by increasing social capital," write the researchers whose
work yielded this stat. Male self-reported drinkers earn 21 percent more than male abstainers;
drinking females earn 8 percent more than nondrinking females. Males who visit bars at least
once a month "earn an additional 7 percent on top of the 10 percent drinkers' premium...
Rather than attempting to discourage drinking in society, perhaps we should encourage it."
Says self-made multimillionaire Jim Britt, author of Do This. Get Rich!: "A person who
doesn't drink at all—not that that's a bad thing—is probably very conservative, and that
would keep him or her out of a lot of social circles."
Those who earned undergraduate degrees in petroleum
engineering earn salaries over four times as high as those
who earned undergraduate degrees in child and family
studies.
Mid-career median salaries for former petroleum-engineering majors are around $157,000;
for former child and family studies majors, they're $38,400. Degrees in engineering—
chemical, electrical, aerospace, nuclear, and petroleum—draw higher pay than any other type
of degree, according to the job-market report containing these figures. Those with undergrad
degrees in applied mathematics earn nearly twice as much as those with degrees in theology,
art history, and French.

4. Each one-unit increase in a typical young person's body
mass index is associated with an 8 percent reduction in
wealth.
White females suffer the greatest wealth drop, at 12 percent. For white men, it's only 2
percent, and for African-American women, 7 percent. Weight gain has no impact on net
worth for African-American males, according to the study that produced this stat. Obese
people "tend to have higher medical costs than others, which cuts into their savings,"
Zagorsky says. "And some employers are willing to pay more for employees who fit
stereotypical beauty models." In any case, "Losing a large amount of weight dramatically
improves your wealth over time. But it has to be an extreme weight change. Losing five
pounds doesn't do anything."
22 percent of American households headed by persons of
Russian ancestry have a net worth of $1 million or more.
People of Russian ancestry demonstrate a higher concentration of millionaires in the United
States than those of all other ancestries, according to the authors of the book in which this
statistic appears. Although only about 1.1 million of American households are headed by
persons of Russian ancestry, they account for "6.4 percent of all millionaire households." By
contrast, 19.5 percent of American households are headed by persons of German ancestry, yet
"only 17.3 percent of all millionaire households are headed by persons of German ancestry
and only about 3.3 percent of German households are in the millionaire league."
21 percent of white Americans and only 2 percent of
African Americans and 8 percent of Hispanics buy real
estate or make other investments at young ages, which
economists consider a key predictor of future wealth.
Jim Britt never finished high school, "but I bought my first home when I was 19 and working
on a factory assembly line," he says. His wife was an assembly-line worker, too. "I had no
background, no money—so I had to get creative. That was the first step. Seeing an
opportunity, having a desire, making a decision to accomplish something before you know
how you're going to accomplish it: This is the mind-set that many wealthy people share."
Blond women earn 7 percent more money than non-
blonds.
And blond women marry men who earn about 6 percent more than the husbands of non-
blonds, according to the study that yielded this stat. Blond hair is stereotypically considered
more attractive than other hair colors, and "people like to be associated with pretty people... I

5. guess subconsciously a boss would pay extra for that potential privilege," Corey says. "I
tolerate a sales pitch from an attractive girl much longer than I do from an unattractive one.
Nonsmokers' net worth is about 50 percent higher than
that of light smokers, and more than twice as much as that
of heavy smokers.
Each year of adulthood during which an individual remains a smoker represents a 4 percent
decrease in his or her net worth. "Smokers spend an incredible amount of money on
smoking," says Zagorsky, whose research produced these figures. "Those packs really do add
up."
36 percent of American children born to parents in the
uppermost economic bracket remain there as adults.
And exactly the same percentage of children born into the bottom wealth bracket remain in
the bottom bracket as adults. Born rich? Born poor? You've got a 36 percent chance of
staying that way
54 percent of American children who are born to parents
in the uppermost economic bracket and who then earn
college degrees remain at the top.
How to increase your chances of staying rich if you were born rich? Earn a college degree.
How to get rich if you were born poor? Earn a college degree. 84 percent of American
children born at the bottom of the economic ladder and who later earn degrees rise at least
one rung; 19 percent reach the top. But only 5 percent of Americans born poor rise to the top
without college degrees, according to the authors of the study that produced these stats. (To
increase your chances even more, attend Harvey Mudd.