Yesterday, Credit Suisse released its latest annual Global Wealth Report. Driven by rising stock markets and house prices, the total amount of personal wealth and the number of super-rich people achieved record-breaking growth last year, while global wealth inequality increased.
Global wealth total hit a record high
As of the end of 2021, the total global wealth was estimated to be US$463.6 trillion, an increase of 9.8% over 2020, far higher than the average annual increase of 6.6% since the beginning of this century. Putting aside the exchange rate fluctuations, the total global wealth increased by 12.7%. The top two economies: the United States and China, with the largest increase in household wealth, followed by Canada, India and Australia.
On a per capita basis, the wealth owned by each adult continues to rise to $874,900. Taking into account the factors of inflation , Credit Suisse estimates the growth rate of real wealth to be 8.2%.
-by-regional perspective, the total and per capita wealth of North America, China, India and Latin America increased significantly last year. Among them, the total personal wealth of the United States was US$158.2 trillion, an increase of 15.5% over the previous year; the per capita wealth of the adult population was US$560,800, an increase of 14.7% over the previous year. China's total personal wealth was US$85.1 trillion, an increase of 15.1% over the previous year; the per capita wealth of the adult population was US$76,000, an increase of 14.5% over the previous year.
Switzerland still has the highest per capita wealth at US$696,600, followed by the United States, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Australia. But if calculated based on the per capita wealth of adults, Australia, Belgium and New Zealand ranked in the top three, at US$273,900, US$267,900 and US$231,300 respectively.
Wealth loss is less common, almost and all are related to the depreciation of the domestic currency caused by strong US dollars, such as Japan, Italy and Türkiye .
Global Wealth Pyramid
Tower base
A large number of low-income people form the basis of the global Wealth Pyramid. According to Credit Suisse's estimates, there are 2.8 billion adults with global wealth below US$10,000 in 2021, accounting for about 53.2% of the total adult population, but all their wealth accounts for only 1.1% of the total global wealth.
Intermediate layer
is divided into wealth between 10,000 and 100,000 and 100,000 to 1 million US dollars. The middle layer includes two groups:
group with wealth between 10,000 and 100,000 US dollars, with the largest increase in the number of people since the 21st century, increasing from 404 million in 2000 to more than 1.8 billion at the end of 2021, nearly three times. This reflects the growing prosperity of emerging economies, especially China, and the expansion of the middle class in developing countries in . The average wealth of this group is US$33,724, which is 40% of the global average wealth level. The total wealth of this group is US$60.4 trillion, which plays a significant role in the global wealth system.
The group with wealth ranging from $100,000 to $1 million has tripled since the 21st century, with the number of people increasing from 208 million to 627 million. Members of this group currently have a total net worth of $176.5 trillion, accounting for 38.1% of global wealth. This proportion is almost four times the share of the global adult population. The middle class in developed countries usually belongs to this group. Among the two groups that form the middle layer, China accounts for 38% and India accounts for 9%.
Tower spire
The spire of the global wealth pyramid is composed of 62.5 million rich people with net assets of more than US$1 million, 5.2 million more than the previous year, accounting for 1.2% of the total adult population in the world. From 2000 to 2021, the total wealth of this group of people increased fivefold, from US$41.4 trillion to US$221.7 trillion, and its share of global wealth increased from 35% to 48%.
Among them, the number of millionaires in the United States increased by 2.5 million last year to 24.5 million, accounting for 39.2% of the total number of millionaires in the world. China has 6.2 million millionaires, ranking second in the world, accounting for about 10% of the total number of millionaires in the world. Next are Japan (5.4%), the United Kingdom (4.6%) and France (4.5%).
The top of the spire is an individual with a net worth of 264,200 UHNW (UHNW) with a net worth of more than $50 million.In 2019, this group had about 17.5 members, an increase of 43,500 in 2020 and another 46,000 in 2021 to 264,200. This means that the number of global ultra-high net worth rich people increased by 50% in the first two years after the outbreak began.
00000 people (146,600) in Europe, 42,700 (16%), 32,700 (12%) in China, and 32,700 (12%) in Asia-Pacific countries (excluding China and India) have 30,000 (11%).
points in the country, the United States is far ahead with 141,100 people, equivalent to 53% of the world's ultra-high net worth. China ranked second with 32,700, followed by Germany (9,720), Canada (5,510) and India (4,980).
From the global wealth pyramid, we can see that global wealth inequality is intensifying in 2021. Credit Suisse believes that this is mainly caused by strong growth in financial assets, and this volatility is temporary. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the degree of global wealth inequality has declined, and the median global wealth growth rate is much faster than the global GDP growth rate. Therefore, in the past 20 years, ordinary families have been able to accumulate wealth. At present, asset prices have fallen, and the trend of intensifying global wealth inequality is expected to be reversed in the future.
Non-financial assets are the fixed-panel star for Canadian wealth growth
In 2021, Canada's assets increased by 15.4% overall, mainly due to the growth of non-financial assets. Financial assets account for only 36.6% of the total asset growth. Canada has not experienced the housing crisis, and the growth of non-financial wealth has been hardly interrupted by the global financial crisis .
Canada's wealth inequality is also slightly better. The wealth share of the top 1% of adults fell from 29.1% in 2000 to 25.0%. Credit Suisse believes that a large part of the reason is that house prices are rising faster than Canadian stock prices, thus increasing the wealth share of the intermediate group.
Global Wealth Outlook
Credit Swiss expects that under the influence of recent global economic headwinds, the global personal wealth growth trend may undergo some reversal from 2022 to 2023, but it is expected to maintain growth in the next five years.
Credit Suisse predicts that by 2024, the per capita wealth of adults around the world will exceed the $100,000 mark.
is expected to increase global wealth by US$169 trillion by 2026, with a cumulative increase of 36%, with middle-income countries being the main driving force for global wealth growth.
The number of millionaires worldwide is expected to exceed 87 million in the next five years, an increase of about 39% from the end of 2021. The number of millionaires and ultra-high net worth individuals in China are expected to double, reaching 12.2 million and nearly 60,000 respectively.
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