10 Richest Women in America

Each year Forbes publishes a list of the richest people in America. This list might just as easily be called “the richest men in America” since there are so few women who make the cut. They do make up about ten percent of the richest 100, though, and hopefully there will be more of them in the future.

For the time being, according to the 2011 list, there are only 10 women in the list of the Top 100 Richest People in America. Who are they?

1. Christy Walton. The richest woman in the world according to this list is Christy Walton of Walmart. The 56-year-old woman is number four on the list with a net worth of $24 billion. That’s a lot of money. However, it’s considerably less than the top two (male) earners on the list (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who are worth $54 billion and $45 billion respectively).

2. Alice Walton. WalMart is a money maker for the people at the head of the company as evidenced by the fact that the second richest woman on the list is also from this company. Alice Walton isn’t worth quite as much as Christy Walton, though. With a net value of $20 billion, the 60-year old Texas woman is number eight on the list of richest people in America.

3. Anne Cox Chambers. We don’t see another female appear on the richest people list until way down at number 19 when Anne Cox Chambers of Cox Enterprises appears. The 91-year old Georgia woman is worth $12.5 billion.

4. Abigail Johnson. A few notches down the list at number 22 is Abigail Johnson of Fidelity. The 49-year-old Boston resident has a net worth of $11.3 billion.

5. Jacqueline Mars. Next up on the list is Jacqueline Mars of the Mars family. She shares spot number 26 on the richest people list with the other Mars family members – Forrest and John. They each have a net worth of $10 billion from their candy business.

6. Blair Parry-Okedon. Next we jump to number 38 on the list where we find Blair Parry-Okedon, also of the Cox Enterprises family (like Anne Cox Chambers up there as third richest woman in America). This 60-year-old woman is worth $6.2 billion, about half the worth of Chambers. An interesting tidbit of information about Blair Parry-Okedon is that she is the only woman in the Top 50 Richest People who elect not to donate any money to political contributions.  (There are only 7 others in the Top 50 list that make this decision and they are all men; the five women listed above all do make political donations.)

7, 8, 9. Marion MacMillan Pictet, Whitney MacMillan, Pauline MacMillan Keinath. After Blair Parry-Okedon, we have to jump all the way down to number 79 on the richest people list to find another woman. In fact, here we’ll find three women (along with one man, Cargill MacMillan) who all tie for number 79 on the rich list with a $3.8 billion net worth. These people all get their money from Cargill Inc.

10. Ann Walton Kroenke. Sneaking on to the list of the top ten richest women in America (and barely squeaking onto the top 100 richest Americans in a tie at #98) is Ann Walton Kroenke of Walmart who is worth $3.2 billion. That’s nothing compared to the Walmart women up there at number 1 and 2 on this list but it’s still a lot of money!

Are you surprised that only ten percent of the richest people in the world are women?