The 40 richest families in America, ranked

Billionaires’ wealth and power have grown sharply over the past few years.

Although the US doesn’t have any royal families, it certainly has family empires with enormous fortunes — and influence.

There are the Hearst and Newhouse families, who built publishing powerhouses; Estée Lauder, the founder of the cosmetics giant that generated the Lauder family fortune; and the families who created their wealth with retail and hotel empires, such as the Waltons with Walmart and the Pritzkers with Hyatt Hotels.

Below are the 40 richest families in the US, ranked by estimated net worth from lowest to highest.

The rankings were determined using the most up-to-date estimated net worths available from Forbes, released on July 29.