The number of millionaires in the United States has increased despite two years of economic turbulence.
Key Details
- Credit Suisse’s annual Global Wealth Report, released Tuesday, shows that America gained more than 2.5 million new millionaires in the past year.
- “Worldwide, we estimate that there were 62.5 million millionaires at the end of 2021, 5.2 million more than the year before,” says Credit Suisse.
- “This is the largest increase in millionaire numbers recorded for any country in any year this century.”
- “The report highlighted that the rapid growth in the number of millionaires in 2021 was accompanied by growth in wealth for those in the top 1%, which rose for a second year running,” says Entrepreneur.
“The world will have nearly 40% more millionaires in 2026 compared with the end of last year,” says Forbes.
Why it’s important
The pandemic created many opportunities for wealth creation and innovation that major corporations and communications companies were able to meet the need of. The result has been an increase in wealth creation for
“Wealth creation appeared to be completely detached from the economic woes of the pandemic,” says BBC.
The problem
The downside of wealth creation is that lower-income people had their wealth decrease, as the pandemic forced them to dip into savings to meet their needs.
“2020 saw a historic setback in the fight against global poverty, with the number of the world’s poorest rising for the first time in over 20 years,” says CNN Business.
Credit Suisse reports that global wealth inequality has expanded due to the pandemic, but it expects the divide to decrease though as the economy returns to normal.
Possible solutions
“We would expect to see wealth inequality revert toward the pre-pandemic level,” says Credit Suisse.
“There is no reason to think that wealth inequality is now trending upward. Indeed, given the marked decline in share prices in the first half of 2022, there is every chance that the portfolio share of financial assets will decline in 2022 and that wealth inequality will follow a similar downward path.”
“The faster growth achieved by median wealth at the global level may weaken, or even stop, if the downward trend in global inequality subsides.”
“The actions undertaken by governments and central banks to offset the economic repercussions of COVID-19 resulted in rapid share price rises in 2020, which caused wealth inequality to rise, regardless of the choice of inequality measure.”