How much of the world's wealth do the richest people hold?

The World’s Richest Just Got (Much) Richer

The world’s richest 1 percent hold half of the world’s wealth, according to the latest Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, with total global wealth growing to $280 trillion.

“Comparing wealth gains across countries, the United States is an unquestionable leader,” the report says. “The country continued its remarkable unbroken spell of gains after the financial crisis and added USD 8.5 trillion to the stock of global wealth. In other words, the U.S. generated more than half of the total global wealth aggregation of USD 16.7 trillion of the past 12 months.”

“While the majority of wealth is still held by high-income economies in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific (excluding China and India), new wealth creators are becoming more visible. China, after suffering losses of 20 percent during the crisis, quickly overtook its pre-crisis level of wealth growth. This year, its pace of wealth creation caught up with the pace of Europe, and its input to the global wealth stock was USD 1.7 trillion.”

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