The gap between the world’s richest and everyone else has reached mathematically surreal proportions. The newly released World Inequality Report estimates that fewer than 60,000 people — about 0.001% of the global population — now control three times more wealth than the entire bottom half of humanity.
The report, released with the United Nations Development Programme, shows a global economy where financial power has concentrated at a pace researchers say is destabilizing. The top 10% of earners make more income than the remaining 90% combined. The poorest half receives less than 10% of total earnings.
Wealth is even more unevenly distributed. The richest 10% own 75% of global assets. The bottom half owns 2%. In many regions, the top 1% holds more wealth than the bottom 90%, and the gap continues to stretch wider.
Ricardo Gómez-Carrera, one of the report’s lead authors, underscored the scale of the divide.
“The result is a world in which a tiny minority commands unprecedented financial power, while billions remain excluded from even basic economic stability,” he wrote.
The top 0.001% has increased its share of global wealth from 4% to more than 6% since the mid-1990s. Multimillionaire wealth has grown at about 8% annually for decades, far outpacing gains among the bottom half of the world.
Opportunity follows the same pattern. Education spending per child in Europe and North America is more than 40 times higher than in sub-Saharan Africa. Gender gaps remain wide. Women earn 61% of what men earn per hour of paid work, and the figure drops significantly when unpaid labor is included.
Climate impacts reveal another layer. The poorest half of the global population generates only 3% of carbon emissions tied to private capital ownership, yet these communities face the harshest climate shocks. Wealthier groups produce most emissions and remain far more insulated from their effects.
The researchers outline clear policy options. A global 3% tax on the world’s wealthiest individuals — fewer than 100,000 people — would raise an estimated $750 billion per year. The report notes that investment in education and strong public systems consistently reduces inequality when governments prioritize them.
In the report’s preface, Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz renewed his appeal for a coordinated global response. He called for the creation of an international panel “to track inequality worldwide and provide objective, evidence-based recommendations.” He wrote that the scale of today’s disparities requires a shared commitment across nations.
The report concludes that the tools to reduce inequality are well established. The difficult part is mobilizing the political will to use them.
