The richest people on the planet just added new members to their exclusive club.

The world’s ultra-high net worth population — individuals with $30 million or more in assets — grew by 3.5% to 226,450 individuals in 2016 after a sharp fall a year earlier, according to recent data by global wealth consultancy Wealth-X. Their combined wealth also increased in 2016 by 1.5% to $27 trillion. There were sharp regional fluctuations in dollar-denominated wealth creation last year, with North America (up 5.1%) recording the only significant rise in wealth, followed by Asia (up 3.5%).

“The picture was subdued in Europe, with the ultra wealthy population and its total wealth edging slightly lower, while fortunes remained largely unchanged in the Middle East,” the report concluded. “Buoyed by a stronger dollar, rising equity markets and a robust tech sector, the U.S. consolidated its dominant position as the world’s leading ultra-high net worth country.” Currency fluctuations helped the U.S., Japan, India and Indonesia, but hurt the U.K., Russia, Mexico and Brazil.

In the U.S., average workers did not see the same kind of gains as the super-rich. The average chief executive at a S&P 500 company received a pay raise in 2016 nearly three times the rate of the average worker. The median total compensation for the CEOs included was totaled $11.5 million last year, an 8.5% increase from the previous year and the largest increase since 2013, a separate report by the Associated Press and the executive pay data firm Equilar released last May found.

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While the number of people with $30 million or more increased last year, billionaires didn’t fare so well. Their net worth fell for the first time since the Great Recession, Wealth-X reported. The number of the world’s billionaires fell by 3% last year to 2,397. Some 283 people — 10% of total billionaires — lost their billionaire status in 2016, and 207 new billionaires emerged to join the club. Their wealth fell by nearly 4% to $7.4 trillion in wealth last year after rising 5% to $7.7 trillion the previous year.

In China, the number of billionaires fell by 4.2% to 249 and their wealth fell 0.7% to $670 billion. In Germany, the number of billionaires fell by nearly 1% to 129 and their wealth fell by 13% to $368 billion. In the U.S., however, the number of billionaires actually rose last year by 6% to 620 and their wealth also increased by 4.6% to $2.6 trillion. “The greatest growth was in technology-sourced wealth,” says Maya Imberg, director in the Wealth-X custom research team in London.

This illustrates the volatile nature of extreme wealth creation and preservation, Imberg said. In 2016, slightly less than three-quarters of the world’s billionaires experienced a rise or fall of more 5% of their net worth, for instance, and one in five saw a fluctuation of more than 20%. These movements are driven by rocky stock markets in Europe and Asia and a strong performance in U.S. stocks last year. (China’s stock market was one of the worst performers in the world last year.)

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This report uses a proprietary database of ultra-high net-worth individuals. The database provides insights into their financial assets, career history, known associates and affiliations, family background, education, philanthropic endeavors, hobbies, interests, real estate holdings and business dealings. Their assets include both privately and publicly held businesses and investable assets. Wealth-X uses the primary business address as the determinant of a billionaire’s location.

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Wealth-X also has some curious details on the world’s richest folk. Most American billionaires went to Harvard University — including Facebook FB, +2.12% chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft MSFT, +2.27% CEO Bill Gates, although both dropped out to start their businesses. Half of the world’s 115 tech industry billionaires are below age 50 and one-third of China’s billionaires are younger than 50. Some 272 billionaires were women, while 2,125 were men, the report found.

Ultra high-net-worth individuals will transfer $3.9 trillion to the next generation by 2026, according to a separate report released last year by Wealth-X. This reflects a 5% decline from the report’s 2014 estimate of $4.1 trillion, but this is because the massive global wealth transfer among the world’s newest superrich has already begun. The biggest concern for the world’s superrich was “succession and inheritance issues” (67%), another survey by global real estate consultants Knight Frank found.