In the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth. Income inequality in the U.S. Despite the idea that the United States is a country where hard work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps will inevitably lead to success, this is often not the case. In 2023, 7.4 percent of U.S. households had an annual income under 15,000 U.S. dollars. With such a small percentage of people in the United States owning such a vast majority of the country’s wealth, the gap between the rich and poor in America remains stark. The top one percent The United States follows closely behind China as the country with the most billionaires in the world. Elon Musk alone held around 219 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Over the past 50 years, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio has exploded, causing the gap between rich and poor to grow, with some economists theorizing that this gap is the largest it has been since right before the Great Depression.

In the first quarter of 2024, 51.8 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by members of the baby boomer generation. In comparison, millennials own around 9.4 percent of total wealth in the U.S. In terms of population distribution, there is almost an equal share of millennials and baby boomers in the United States.

With a net worth of 212.1 billion U.S. dollars, Bernard Arnault & family, the founder and CEO of the luxury brand LVMH, was the wealthiest man in the world in February 2024. The wealthiest people in the world Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, came second with a wealth of 194.6 billion U.S. dollars. Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos followed in third. All the 10 richest people in the world were men. Wealth distribution worldwide As of 2022, one percent of people held nearly half of the world's combined wealth. Moreover, 2.8 billion of the world's population hold a combined wealth of less than 10,000 U.S. dollars, compared to 59 million people having a combined wealth of one billion dollars or more, underlining the vast inequalities around the world. Where do the most affluent people live? Most millionaires live in the United States, while Hong Konk was the city hosting the largest number of high net worth individuals worldwide. The country with the highest number of billionaires is China.

In 2023, about 26.9 percent of Asian private households in the U.S. had an annual income of 200,000 U.S. dollars and more. Comparatively, around 13.9 percent of Black households had an annual income under 15,000 U.S. dollars.

In 2023, 18 of the 3,323 billionaires worldwide had assets amounting to more than 50 billion U.S. dollars. On the other hand, almost 1,700 had a fortune between one and two billion dollars. As of March 2025, Elon Musk was the richest person in the world.

According to the Hurun Global Rich List 2024, China housed the highest number of billionaires worldwide in 2024. In detail, there were 814 billionaires living in China as of January that year. By comparison, 800 billionaires resided in the United States. India, the United Kingdom, and Germany were also the homes of a significant number of billionaires that year. United States lost its first place As the founder and exporter of consumer capitalism, it is no surprise that the United States is home to a large number of billionaires. However, the United States has lost their place as the country with the most billionaires in the world to China. This rise of billionaires in China has coincided with the liberalization of its economy and successive high growth rates. However, North America still leads the way in terms of the highest number of ultra high net worth individuals – those with a net worth of more than fifty million U.S. dollars. The prominence of Europe and North America is a reflection of the higher degree of economic development in those states. However, this may also change as China and other emerging economies continue developing. Female billionaires Moreover, the small proportion of female billionaires does little to counter critics claiming the global economy is dominated by an elite comprised mainly of men. On the list of the 20 richest people in the world, only one was a woman. Moreover, recent political discourse has put a great amount of attention on the wealth held by the super-rich with the wealth distribution of the global population being heavily unequal.

60 percent of Australians were in the wealth range between 100,000 and one million U.S. dollars in 2020. Just 9.4 percent of Australian adults had wealth of over one million U.S. dollars, which was slightly less than the share of people who had under 10,000 U.S. dollars in wealth.

Wealth distribution in the Asia-Pacific

In 2020, China had the highest number of millionaires, followed by Japan and Australia. The number of millionaires in Australia was forecasted to increase from 1.8 million to three million by 2025. According to a source, among the Asia-Pacific countries, Australia ranked second in the share of wealth per adult. The source had revealed the wealth per adult in Australia was more than 483 thousand U.S. dollars in 2020.

LGBTQ community of Australia

In 2020, a survey of working adults in Australia revealed that LGBTQ adults were employed in public services and the law enforcement across the country. On the one hand, more than 38 percent of LGBTQ individuals had a role as as a team member, above 12 percent of respondents answered that they were either team leader or supervisor.

India’s per capita net national income or NNI was around 200 thousand rupees in financial year 2025. The annual growth rate was 8.6 percent as compared to the previous year. National income indicators   While GNI (Gross National Income) and NNI are both indicators for a country’s economic performance and welfare, the GNI is related to the GDP plus the net receipts from abroad, including wages and salaries, property income, net taxes and subsidies receivable from abroad. On the other hand, the NNI of a country is equal to its GNI net of depreciation. In 2020, India ranked second amongst the Asia Pacific countries in terms of its gross national income. This has been possible due to a favorable GDP growth in India. Measuring wealth versus welfare   National income per person or per capita is often used as an indicator of people's standard of living and welfare. However, critics object to this by citing that since it is a mean value, it does not reflect the real income distribution. In other words, a small wealthy class of people in the country can skew the per capita income substantially, even though the average population has no change in income. This is exemplified by the fact that in India, the top one percent of people, control over 40 percent of the country’s wealth.

In 2024, the average annual per capita disposable income of households in China amounted to approximately 41,300 yuan. Annual per capita income in Chinese saw a significant rise over the last decades and is still rising at a high pace. During the last ten years, per capita disposable income roughly doubled in China. Income distribution in China As an emerging economy, China faces a large number of development challenges, one of the most pressing issues being income inequality. The income gap between rural and urban areas has been stirring social unrest in China and poses a serious threat to the dogma of a “harmonious society” proclaimed by the communist party. In contrast to the disposable income of urban households, which reached around 54,200 yuan in 2024, that of rural households only amounted to around 23,100 yuan. Coinciding with the urban-rural income gap, income disparities between coastal and western regions in China have become apparent. As of 2023, households in Shanghai and Beijing displayed the highest average annual income of around 84,800 and 81,900 yuan respectively, followed by Zhejiang province with 63,800 yuan. Gansu, a province located in the West of China, had the lowest average annual per capita household income in China with merely 25,000 yuan. Income inequality in China The Gini coefficient is the most commonly used measure of income inequality. For China, the official Gini coefficient also indicates the astonishing inequality of income distribution in the country. Although the Gini coefficient has dropped from its high in 2008 at 49.1 points, it still ranged at a score of 46.5 points in 2023. The United Nations have set an index value of 40 as a warning level for serious inequality in a society.

According to exit polling in ten key states of the 2024 presidential election in the United States, 46 percent of voters with a 2023 household income of 30,000 U.S. dollars or less reported voting for Donald Trump. In comparison, 51 percent of voters with a total family income of 100,000 to 199,999 U.S. dollars reported voting for Kamala Harris.

The estimated per capita income across Sikkim was the highest among Indian states at around 588 thousand Indian rupees in the financial year 2024. Meanwhile, it was the lowest in the northern state of Bihar at over 60 thousand rupees. India’s youngest state, Telangana stood in the fifth place. The country's average per capita income that year was an estimated 184 thousand rupees. What is per capita income? Per capita income is a measure of the average income earned per person in a given area in a certain period. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. If absolute numbers are noted, India’s per capita income doubled from the financial year 2015 to 2023. Wealth inequality However, as per economists, the increase in the per capita income of a country does not always reflect an increase in the income of the entire population. Wealth distribution in India remains highly skewed. The average income hides the disbursal and inequality in a society. Especially in a society like India where the top one percent owned over 40 percent of the total wealth in 2022.