World Inequality Lab Report: Richest 1% owns nearly 40% of world wealth

A research group based in France says the wealthiest 1 percent of people in the world own nearly 40 percent of all personal assets.

The finding is contained in a newly released report on global economic inequality by the World Inequality Lab.

It says that about 51 million people, or the richest 1 percent of the global adult population, own 37.8 percent of all personal assets. The figure is up more than 4 points from the previous survey four years ago.

The report also says that personal assets of the bottom 50 percent of the world population accounted for only about 2 percent of global wealth.

The report points out that the disparity widened mainly in developing countries, as non-regular workers suffered income drops and unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It stresses that ”addressing the challenges of the 21st century is not feasible without significant redistribution of income and wealth inequalities.” It says that wealth taxes on high-income individuals as well as taxes on multinational firms are necessary to improve the situation.

The report also gives the percentage of wealth held by the top 1 percent in each country. The figure is about 35 percent in the United States, about 31 percent in China, and about 25 percent in Japan.

The report says wealth distribution in Japan is very unequal but not more so than in Western European countries.