Global (Common Wealth) _ For all adults in the globe, personal wealth is defined as ownership of real estate and financial assets (stocks, bonds, and cash) less debt.
According to the 2022 study, worldwide wealth reached $463.6 trillion by the end of 2021, a growth of 9.8% over 2020 and much above the average yearly +6.6% observed since the turn of the century. Aside from exchange rate fluctuations, aggregate global wealth increased by 12.7%, the fastest yearly rate ever recorded. The average adult’s wealth increased to $87,489 at the end of 2021. In 2021, the United States added the most household wealth, followed by China, Canada, Japan, India and Australia.
This increase in wealth (real estate and financial assets) has not been distributed fairly. On the contrary, the worldwide top 1%’s wealth share increased for the second year in a row, reaching 45.6% in 2021, up from 43.9% in 2019. A pyramid is used to depict this in the report.
According to the wealth pyramid, 62 million people out of a total of 4.4 billion adults in the world, or just 1.2%, possessed 47.8% of the world’s wealth, while 2.8 billion persons (or 53.2%) had only 1.1% – a shocking amount of inequality. While the wealthiest 1.2% had average wealth after debt of well over $1 million, the poorest 53% had far less, at least 100 times less.
Within the wealthiest segment, the discrepancy is even more pronounced – with even another pyramid. At the end of 2021, there will be 264,200 ultra-high-networth (UHNW) individuals with net worths exceeding $50 million. This is 46,000 more than the 218,200 recorded at the end of 2020, which was 43,400 more than the previous year. These increases are more than twice as large as any other year this century.
India’s median wealth per adult increased by 7% per year from $1005 in 2000 to $3295 in 2021, yet in 2000, India’s wealth per adult was only 2% of that in North America; now it is only 3%, and India’s adults remain significantly behind the global average. Indeed, the ratio has dropped from 62% in 2000 to 40% today. India is regressing relative to China, while China is progressing relative to India.
In terms of gender disparity, the report reveals that of the 26 nations that account for 59% of the global adult population, 15 (including China, Germany, and India) have seen a fall in women’s wealth over the last two years.
There were 62.5 million millionaires worldwide by the end of 2021, up 5.2 million from the previous year. The United States gained 2.5 million new millionaires, accounting for over half of the global total. This is the highest increase in millionaire numbers recorded for any country in any year this century, and it confirms the United States’ strong climb in millionaire numbers since 2016. The United States presently boasts 39% of all millionaires in a population of 350 million, whereas China has 10% in a population of 1.4 billion.
Wealth inequality declined in various industrialized capitalist economies during the first decade of the twenty-first century, but subsequently surged with the global financial crisis and economic downturn. By 2021, the Gini coefficient had increased slightly beyond its 2000 level, hovering at 70.2 in France and 70.6 in the United Kingdom – roughly the same as in China.
China and Russia are key members of the “intermediate wealth” category of countries, with average wealth ranging from USD 25,000 to $100,000. This group also includes more recent European Union members as well as significant emerging-market economies in Latin America and the Middle East.
