Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick spent a decade mining tax data to identify an under-the-radar class of American wealth Dick Portillo turned a $1,100 investment into a billion-dollar hot-dog empire over 50 years. And according to two economists who spent a decade mining tax data to find out who is actually wealthy in America, his story is not the exception — it is closer to the rule. Owen Zidar, professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, and Eric Zwick, the Joel F.
Gemunder Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, are the authors of “The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There,” which came out Sept. 15. They argue that American wealth is not as concentrated among tech billionaires and Wall Street financiers as commonly believed; a large share of it belongs to an invisible class of car dealers, HVAC contractors and restaurant owners. In this recent interview, edited for length and clarity, Zidar and Zwick share how ordinary people can follow the same path, why owning beats earning, and what changed in the 1980s to send more wealth toward private business owners. **Market **What does Dick Portillo’s hot-dog stand tell us about how wealth is really built in America?
Don’t Short Yourself offers weekly money tips to help you earn it, stack it and grow it. I would like to receive updates and special offers from Dow Jones and affiliates. I can unsubscribe at any time. **Zwick:**Portillo is a bit of an outlier.
He turned $1,100 into a billion-dollar empire of hot-dog stands over 50 years. But there are real lessons in that story about entrepreneurship and the American dream. What we learned from Portillo, and from the other stories in the book, is that extraordinary wealth is far more abundant in America than conventional wisdom suggests — which focuses on a handful of tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, or Wall Street figures like Jamie Dimon.
The truth is closer to home: The everywhere millionaires we describe are in metros, suburbs and rural areas across the country, building extraordinary fortunes in ordinary businesses. **Market **If an ordinary person wanted to follow this path to wealth, where should they start? **Zidar:**It depends on where this person is in their life. One way to emulate highly successful people is to start in a tactile sector, like construction or auto repair, that gives you hands-on experience. After five or 10 years, you could be in a position to run the business yourself if the owner is retiring.
A related lesson is that the way you get rich is by owning and not earning. You’re not going to get very rich making W-2 paychecks. You want to be an equity holder. **Zwick:**There’s also an “early apprenticeship” feeling to these stories: work at a smaller organization, but stay close to the top of it, so you see what the boss does — how to run a business, make sales calls, negotiate with a supplier, hire and fire.
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