Millennials are not that wealthy. Americans in this cohort have a lot of catching up.
Abundance is on the fast track of growth. According to the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s global wealth report, there are 2.3m new millionaires in the world.
The report underlines the sharp divide between the wealthy and the rest.
If the world’s total were divided equally, each household would have $56,540.
Instead, the top 1% own more than half of all global wealth. The median wealth per household is just $3,582; if you own more than that, you are in the richest 50% of the world’s population.
U.S. is king in wealth
America continues to dominate the ranks of millionaires with 43% of the global total.
Both Japan and Britain had fewer dollar millionaires than they did in June 2016, thanks to declines in the yen and sterling.
Emerging economies have been catching up in the millionaire stakes; they now have 8.4% of the global total, up from 2.7% in 2000.
In the 12 months covered by the report, the biggest proportionate gains in wealth occurred in Poland, Israel and South Africa, thanks to a combination of stockmarket and currency gains.
Egypt, on the bottom
Egypt is by far the biggest loser, having lost almost half its wealth in dollar terms.
Switzerland is still the country with the highest mean per person.
There is a wide generational gap: millennials (those who reached adulthood in the current millennium) have a lot of catching up to do in the stakes. Americans currently aged between 30 and 39 years of age are calculated to have amassed 46% less wealth on average in 2017 than the equivalent cohort had gathered in 2007.
