The world’s top 1% of most wealthy people owns 38% of the world’s wealth and earns 19% of its income according to the latest report of French economist Thomas Piketty’s World Inequality Lab.
According to the report COVID has exacerbated inequality, particularly in poor countries.
“The COVID crisis has exacerbated inequalities between the very wealthy and the rest of the population. Yet, in rich countries, government intervention prevented a massive rise in poverty, this was not the case in poor countries. This shows the importance of social states in the fight against poverty.”, explains Lucas Chancel, lead author of the report.
The bottom 50% of the world’s population held 2% of wealth and earned 8% of all income.
Among key takeaways from the report are that governments have become relatively poorer while nations have increased in wealth, as well as that the divide is also ecological between high emitters and low emitters in countries.
