The world is growing increasingly unequal, with the 2008 recession leading to a shrinking of wealth in global middle and lower classes while the wealth of the richest 1% has grown rapidly.
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The institute, in its sixth annual Global Wealth Report, focuses on how the middle class has developed since 2000. “Are we really happy to live in a world where the top 1 percent own half the wealth and the poorest half own just 1 percent?”
All in all, the middle class is worth a collective $80.7 trillion, or just under a third of the world’s wealth. That’s an on-year increase of nearly six percentage points.
“The fact it has happened a year early – just weeks after world leaders agreed a global goal to reduce inequality – shows just how urgently world leaders need to tackle this problem”.
The Year in Review, a new report published by the Credit Suisse Group, reveals that the United States is no longer home to the largest middle class on the planet.
This year’s report focuses on the middle classes, as defined by personal wealth rather than profession.
The strengthening US dollar contributed to the contraction of the overall global wealth, which decreased by $12.4 trillion to $250.1 trillion.
The richest one per cent now own half of all the wealth in the world, a new report from Credit Suisse says.
Financial assets constitute 54 per cent of total household assets in Singapore, similar to that of Switzerland and the United Kingdom, said Credit Suisse, adding that the average debt of US$54,600 in Singapore is moderate for a high-wealth country as it equates to 17 per cent of total assets.
This year, the number of High Net Worth individuals fell for the first time since 2008. But side by side with the amassing of previously unthinkable private fortunes, the infrastructure of America is crumbling, education, health care and other social services are starved of funding, and the living standards of the vast majority of the population, the working people who produce the wealth, are declining. Credit Suisse analysts have lowered their forecasts for global wealth growth to 6.6 per cent, down from7.
The number of millionaires will probably increase 46 percent to 49.3 million over the next five years, with Malaysia more than doubling the number of affluent individuals with US$1 million or more, the bank said.
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The report notes that while the number of millionaires has risen quickly, median wealth has stagnated since the financial crisis.
