Did you know the 26 wealthiest people own as much as the poorest 50% of the human population? That’s 26 vs. 3.8 billion. If this doesn’t qualify as mind-blowing content, I don’t know what does.
So let’s dive a bit deeper into these numbers and take a look at how the wealth is distributed around the world.
US citizen control around 30% of the entire’s world wealth. Before take a look at the rest of the world, let’s also take a look at the distribution of wealth within the United States. But before you watch the video, think about it for a second. You’ll be surprised about the real numbers:
Wealth inequality always leads to problems and violence! So now that we know, how the wealth within the US is distributed let’s take a look at the rest of the world and how different countries compared to each other.
How Is Wealth Distributed Around The World?
According to the report, the US controls $105.99T of wealth, which is 30% of the entire world’s net worth, whereas the countries in Asia have a combined net worth of $141.21T, which is nearly 39% of the world’s health. That doesn’t leave much for the rest of the world, does it?
In January 2019, a report from Oxfam shows that 2200 billionaires worldwide saw a 12% increase in their wealth, whereas the poorest half faced a decline of 11% in their wealth.
This seems to be the trend since many years. It sounds like the most cliche thing ever. But the rich keep getting richer and the poor get poorer.
“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” is an aphorism due to Percy Bysshe Shelley. In A Defence of Poetry (1821, not published until 1840)
Some other key notes from the report
- In the 10 years since the financial crisis, the number of billionaires has nearly doubled.
- Between 2017 and 2018 a new billionaire was created every two days.
- The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, saw his fortune increase to $112bn.
- The poorest 10% of Britons are paying a higher effective tax rate than the richest 10% (49% compared with 34%) once taxes on consumption such as VAT are taken into account. Let these numbers sink in. Mind-blowing!
Being rich while also being poor
This sounds a bit like a oxymoron, but is a notion to a fact the Oxfam report doesn’t take into account. It is debt. A prime example is a medical resident with med school debt, or a young family with a massive debt on their house.
The bottom 10 percent of the global wealth distribution contains a bunch of North Americans and Europeans, whereas the next 10 percent contains barely any:
It is because Americans with massive debts end up in the bottom half. A good example for this would be president Donald Trump. He was a very wealthy person, but also one of the “poorest” people on earth when his net worth went negative in the 1990s. Yet he obviously wasn’t poor in any sense relevant to living standards.
So let’s see how rest of the world compares to the United States:
Global distribution of wealth for each country
This image shows that the citizen of the US, Asia and Europe have a similar amount of wealth.
I am certainly a very liberal person and believe in personal fortune and success. But one thing is for sure. It’s not possible, that a rich person (or company) pays less taxes (in percent) than a poorer person. Countries and governments have to tackle this issue in order to bring at least some balance into the distribution of wealth!
What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments!
