The Forbes 400 list of the richest people in the United States just came out for 2009. No real surprises. The Waltons are still comfortably in the top 10 but George Soros made it into the top 20 this year, mostly because a number of folks fell off the list. In fact, the total worth of the 400 wealthiest in the United States fell by $300 billion to $1.27 trillion and the worth of the top 20 dropped by nearly 14%. But before you shed too many tears over this, I correlated a list of the top 20 wealthiest in the United States to countries with the closest GDP as I had also done in 2008. Bill Gates still has an equivalent worth equal to the GDP of Cuba (based on 2008 CIA Factbook data).

The net worth of the 20 wealthiest Americans for 2009 ($374.3 billion) is equivalent to the GDP of Belgium. And despite significant losses in the values of their portfolios, the 400 wealthiest Americans for 2009 still total $1.27 trillion which is the GDP of Canada or the combined total GDP of Chile, Ghana, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia or 9% of the $14.15 trillion GDP of the United States.

Please go to justlists.wordpress.com to find the rest of the list of the wealthiest people in the United States (and equivalent country GDPs).