How Long Would It Take You To Earn $1,000,000,000? (2024)

You'll probably be working for longer than civilization has existed.

By Chris Kolmar

Donald Trump is a billionare. With a B. $1,000,000,000. Nine zeros.^[1]

That's such an obscene amount of money that you can't actually comprehend it. You might think you can, but trust me, you can't.

It's so much money that if you put it in a savings account at 1% interest you'd make $10,000,000/year. That single year interest payment at 1% is more than I'm probably going to make in my lifetime.

Heck, Hillary & Bill Clinton made a combined $28,300,000 in 2014 and it would take them almost 40 years at that rate to accumulate $1 billion.

All of that got us thinking, how long would it take you, dear reader, to reach $1 billion?

Well, if you make the US federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr (Roughly $14,500/year), you're looking at about 69,000 years. That's about 1/4 of the time humans have existed on earth.

Things are a bit better if you earn the US median household income of $52,000 -- that'll only set you back 19,231 years.^[2]

So to help you try to understand how much money $1 billion, we put together this fun visualization below. You can, literally, see how long it would take you to join Zuck, Trump, Warren, and Bill in the billionare club by scrolling through the years.

Join the Billionares

Annual Income

How Long Until I'm A Billionare?

< Each box represents 1 year.

Give the boxes up to 10s to load. Mouseover or tap boxes for more info. You will have to scroll for a long time after you get past the really rich people at the top.

';var box = ''setTimeout(function(){for (i=1;i <= result ; i++){if(i==0){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Warren Buffett Income: $13,500,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: .07 years

';}else if(i==4){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Floyd MayweatherProfessional BoxerIncome: $300,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 3.33 years

';}else if(i==8){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Katy Perry SingerIncome: $135,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 7.41 years

';}else if(i==13){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Taylor Swift SingerIncome: $80,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 12.50 years

';}else if(i==20){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Jennifer Lawrence ActressIncome: $52,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 19.23 years

';}else if(i==20){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Tiger Woods Professional GolferIncome: $50,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 20.00 years

';}else if(i==22){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Robert A. Iger CEO of DisneyIncome: $46,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 21.74 years

';}else if(i==35){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Blake Shelton SingerIncome: $29,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 34.48 years

';}else if(i==36){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Bill & Hillary Clinton President & Former Secretary of StateIncome: $28,300,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 35.34 years

';}else if(i==48){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Howard Schultz CEO of StarbucksIncome: $21,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 47.62 years

';}else if(i==53){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Peyton Manning Professional Football PlayerIncome: $19,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 52.63 years

';}else if(i==100){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Ten MillionIncome: $10,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 100.00 years

';}else if(i==195){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Average NBA PlayerIncome: $5,150,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 194.17 years

';}else if(i==313){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Average MLB PlayerIncome: $3,200,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 312.50 years

';}else if(i==417){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Average NHL PlayerIncome: $2,400,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 416.67 years

';}else if(i==462){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Peter DagerHighest Paid Esports AthleteIncome: $2,168,940/yrTime Until Billioniare: 461.05 years

';}else if(i==527){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Average NFL PlayerIncome: $1,900,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 526.32 years

';}else if(i==770){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Very Rich.1% of Households In AmericaIncome: $1,300,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 769.23 years

';}else if(i==1000){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

One MillionIncome: $1,000,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 1,000.00 years

';}else if(i==2041){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Mimimum MLB SalaryIncome: $490,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 2,040.82 years

';}else if(i==2223){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

The 1%Income: $450,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 2,222.22 years

';}else if(i==2500){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

President Obama POTUSIncome: $400,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 2,500.00 years

';}else if(i==4879){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Bernie Sanders Senator from VermontIncome: $205,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 4,878.05 years

';}else if(i==5715){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Pediatrician Income: $175,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 5,714.29 years

';}else if(i==8772){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Lawyer Income: $114,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 8,771.93 years

';}else if(i==12602){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Software Engineer Income: $79,357/yrTime Until Billioniare: 12,601.28 years

';}else if(i==16322){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Police Income: $61,270/yrTime Until Billioniare: 16,321.20 years

';}else if(i==19231){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Median Household Income: $52,000/yrTime Until Billioniare: 19,230.77 years

';}else if(i==22086){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Teacher Income: $45,278/yrTime Until Billioniare: 22,085.78 years

';}else if(i==55249){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Barista Income: $18,100/yrTime Until Billioniare: 55,248.62 years

';}else if(i==68966){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

Minimum Wage Income: $14,500/yrTime Until Billioniare: 68,965.52 years

';}else{resultDiv = resultDiv + '';};if (i%100 == 0 && i>1){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

---' + i + ' years---

'}if (i%1000 == 0){document.getElementById("result").innerHTML = document.getElementById("result").innerHTML + resultDiv;resultDiv = '';console.log(i);}if(i==result){resultDiv = resultDiv + '

You Income: $' + Math.round(article).toString().replace(/\B(?=(\d{3})+(?!\d))/g, ",") + '/yrTime Until Billioniare: ' + Math.round(result).toString().replace(/\B(?=(\d{3})+(?!\d))/g, ",") +' years

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Footnotes

^[1]Although I would like to see his tax returns to confirm ;)

^[2]As my astute sister-in-law pointed out, I'm assuming 0 inflation and a 0 interest rate over the course of 20,000 years. If you assume something simple like a 1% annual interest rate for 20,000 years, then $1 now would become $267,593,557,235,055,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in the year 22,016.

About Zippia

Zippia is the career expert site, where recent college graduates can study the pathways of previous graduates to learn about which career routes they want to pursue. Career job data can be found on https://www.zippia.com/colleges-and-majors/.

As an expert in finance and data analysis, it's evident that the article you've shared delves into the concept of wealth, income, and the seemingly insurmountable figure of a billion dollars. The author uses engaging storytelling and visualizations to make the audience grasp the enormity of a billion in monetary terms.

Let's break down the key concepts used in the article:

Billion-Dollar Wealth: The central theme revolves around the idea of a billion dollars, emphasizing the magnitude of wealth possessed by individuals like Donald Trump, Warren Buffett, and others. The author employs various comparisons, such as savings account interest rates and annual incomes, to put the concept into perspective.
Income Disparities: The article highlights income disparities by presenting the time it would take for individuals with different incomes to reach the status of a billionaire. This includes scenarios like earning the U.S. federal minimum wage, the median household income, and the incomes of various high-profile individuals, ranging from celebrities to CEOs.
Visualizations: The author employs visual aids to enhance understanding. The interactive visualization represents each year as a box, allowing readers to scroll through time to see how long it would take different earners to accumulate one billion dollars. The article suggests using the mousewheel or arrow keys for desktop and swiping for mobile for an optimal experience.
Time Frames and Rate of Accumulation: Time frames are a crucial component, demonstrating the vast difference in the time required for individuals with varying incomes to accumulate a billion dollars. The article breaks down the time in years for different income levels, illustrating the challenges faced by those with lower incomes in reaching the billionaire club.
Humor and Engagement: The author injects humor into the content, expressing the difficulty in comprehending such colossal amounts of money. For instance, the author humorously mentions attempting to have a computer generate one billion boxes and the subsequent crashes, suggesting the challenge of truly comprehending such wealth.
Footnotes: The footnotes add a layer of transparency and humor, with a playful remark about Donald Trump's tax returns and an acknowledgment of the assumption of zero inflation and interest rate in the calculations.
Zippia: The article concludes with a brief introduction to Zippia, positioning it as a career expert site for recent college graduates. It provides a link for career job data on colleges and majors.

In summary, the article combines financial data, storytelling, humor, and visualizations to convey the magnitude of a billion dollars and the challenges and disparities in reaching such wealth across different income levels. The interactive nature of the content engages the audience and reinforces the central concept.