World's billionaire population growing

Call it hard work and dedication or blame inflation, but hitting the billion-dollar mark isn't as hard as it used to be.

Up 7 percent from last year, Yahoo Finance reports a total of 155 men and women broke the billion-dollar threshold this year.

The combined net worth of the 2,325 people with wealth exceeding $1 billion also is up this year, about 12 percent, to $7.3 trillion, according to the 2014 Billionaire Census from Wealth-X, a Singapore-based research firm, and the Swiss bank UBS.

Yahoo puts it in perspective: The figure is higher than the combined market capitalization of all the companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The average billionaire is male, 63 years old, married, has two children, owns four properties, is self-made and has about $3.1 billion, according to Yahoo. Just 286 billionaires are women. America has the most billionaires in general – New York claims 103, followed by Moscow, Hong Kong and Beijing.

Read more from Yahoo Finance.