{"id":1036,"date":"2026-03-03T13:14:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/?p=1036"},"modified":"2026-03-03T13:14:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:14:47","slug":"wyoming-is-home-to-the-billionaires-and-welcomes-the-new-gilded-age-one-county-teton-county-is-the-richest-in-the-usa-forget-palm-beach-or-the-hamptons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wyoming-is-home-to-the-billionaires-and-welcomes-the-new-gilded-age-one-county-teton-county-is-the-richest-in-the-usa-forget-palm-beach-or-the-hamptons\/","title":{"rendered":"WYOMING IS HOME TO THE BILLIONAIRES AND WELCOMES THE NEW GILDED AGE! ONE COUNTY- TETON COUNTY, IS THE RICHEST IN THE USA…FORGET PALM BEACH OR THE HAMPTONS!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Welcome to Wyoming, the Frontier of America\u2019s New Gilded Age<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

Jackson, Wyo., has long been a refuge for the rich. But the last five years saw a boom in wealth of a kind never before seen. Across the country, the 2017 tax cuts minted hundreds of new billionaires.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Teton County is both the richest county in America and a place that in some areas is struggling to maintain basic services.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Will Warasila for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The gap between the richest residents and everyone else is the largest in the United States. Many worry it\u2019s becoming a window into America\u2019s near future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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At his childhood home in Nebraska that lacked the comforts of television and air conditioning, Joe Ricketts learned that honest work and neighborly values were keys to success.<\/p>\n

After graduating college, he persuaded friends and family to lend him $12,500 in seed money for what became Ameritrade, the investing firm that would go on to disrupt the Wall Street trading establishment and put Mr. Ricketts on a path to riches. By 2015, his wealth had grown to $1 billion, and even that stunning figure now feels like a quaint memory, as the powerful elixir of rising stocks and falling taxes that has minted new billionaires across the country has catapulted Mr. Ricketts\u2019s personal net worth to $8 billion.<\/p>\n

Along the way, Mr. Ricketts found new community in and around Jackson, Wyo., a playground for the rich. For some things, he has been celebrated: He has donated to research on conservation of red squirrels and American beavers. He contributed $1 million to building a hospital. He has taken pride in building a herd of white bison.<\/p>\n

But lately some of his neighbors have come up against the raw power of Mr. Ricketts\u2019s financial muscle. Many of them fought against a plan he advanced a few years ago to turn his ranch into a resort<\/a> for wealthy tourists, proposing to bypass regulations that limit construction during the brutal winter months to protect local wildlife.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Then, when community opponents dug in, Mr. Ricketts simply acquired a different piece of land \u2014 a $9 million parcel that officials had hoped to turn into public land that could benefit everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is not much we can do to rein that in,\u201d said Luther Propst, a county commissioner in Teton County, home to Jackson and the mountain outposts that surround it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Teton County\u2019s top 1 percent of households now have an average annual income of about $35 million, 221 times what the bottom 99 percent is making.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Jackson Hole region has long been a refuge for the rich, but an explosion of new affluence has allowed a growing cadre of extraordinarily wealthy people to dominate both the local economy and Wyoming state politics.<\/p>\n

Teton County is not merely the richest county in the country, per capita, by far; it is a window into America\u2019s near future, as the country enters a new gilded age, one in which millionaires are turning into billionaires overnight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A New York Times analysis shows the stunning velocity at which the fortunes of the 1 percent have increased across the country since President Trump first took office in 2017. The richest Americans saw their net worth soar 120 percent between 2017 and 2025, a colossal leap from the 45 percent growth they had seen over the previous nine years.<\/p>\n

The number of U.S. billionaires jumped 50 percent by some estimates between 2017 and 2025, to more than 900 people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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More and more billionaires<\/h2>\n

The United States added new billionaires in 20 out of the last 25 years, as fortunes grew.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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The total number of billionaires in each year..see chart<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

America\u2019s Billionaires Continue to Flock to Wyoming – The New York Times<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n