Wealth concentration has accelerated dramatically across major economies

Evidence

In the US, the so-called middle class keeps shrinking while the disparity in wealth grows: the top 0.1 percent owns more than five times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent, and three people have more wealth than 150 million Americans combined. And the problem is not limited to this country. In Britain, the richest 1 percent hold more wealth than 70 percent of the population combined. Since 2014, the number of children living in poverty in the UK has grown to one in three, while in the same period the number of billionaires has sextupled. Globally the superrich saw extraordinary gains in 2022 and 2023: for every 1 of new wealth earned by a person in the bottom 90 percent, each billionaire gained roughly 1.7 million. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 27

Categorization

• SHARE: The British child-poverty vs. billionaire-sextupling stat, and the 1-to-1.7M global wealth ratio, are shareable with anyone who tracks inequality data.
• XREF: connects to: California’s postindustrial growth concentrated gains among entrepreneurs and asset owners — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 473; Global wealth concentration has reached extreme, quantified levels over the past decade — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 27; GDP growth masks extreme wealth concentration and environmental destruction. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 93 (+5 more)