China is now home to more wealthy people than the US – for the first time ever
The richest 10 per cent of the world holds 82 per cent of its wealth – and more of the globe’s wealthiest now live in China than the US, or anywhere else on the planet
The richest 10 per cent of people in the world hold 82 per cent of its wealth – and for the first time, there are more wealthy individuals in China than the US.
According to Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2019, the world’s wealthiest 10 per cent hold assets of more than US$109,400. And right now there are 100 million individuals who make that threshold in China – and 99 million in the states.
China's progress has enabled it to replace Europe as the principal source of global wealth growth
China of course has a substantially larger population than the United States — 1,384,688,986 in 2018 compared to 329,256,465 in America – which means that number is only set to grow as China’s economy continues to expand.
“Wealth in China started the century from a lower base, but grew at a much faster [rate],” Credit Suisse said in the report. “It was one of the few countries to avoid the impact of the global financial crisis. China’s progress has enabled it to replace Europe as the principal source of global wealth growth and to replace Japan as the country with the second-largest number of millionaires.”
Despite overtaking the United States as home to the most members of the top 10 per cent, the overall growth of China’s ultra-wealthy class stalled in 2018, according to Credit Suisse. Tariffs and declining exports slowed China’s overall economic growth last year, the report stated.
The US is still home to the largest share of millionaires of any country. Credit Suisse found that 40 per cent of the world’s millionaires — some 18.6 million – are American, compared to China’s 4.4 million.
The United States' wealth gap is growing
Credit Suisse outlined three factors that affect how many millionaires a country has: the size of a country’s adult population, average wealth and levels of wealth inequality.
In the US, the latter of those three metrics is particularly pronounced when compared to China.
The top one per cent of Americans now owns 40 per cent of the country’s wealth, the University of California, Berkeley’s Gabriel Zucman wrote in a paper circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research in February. China, on the other hand, has relatively low — but rising — levels of inequality, due to the lack of old money and equal land division, according to Credit Suisse.
Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter .