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.

A dataset to advance the study of life-cycle interactions of biomedical and socioeconomic factors in the aging process. The EI project has assembled a variety of large datasets covering the life histories of approximately 39,616 white male volunteers (drawn from a random sample of 331 companies) who served in the Union Army (UA), and of about 6,000 African-American veterans from 51 randomly selected United States Colored Troops companies (USCT). Their military records were linked to pension and medical records that detailed the soldiers������?? health status and socioeconomic and family characteristics. Each soldier was searched for in the US decennial census for the years in which they were most likely to be found alive (1850, 1860, 1880, 1900, 1910). In addition, a sample consisting of 70,000 men examined for service in the Union Army between September 1864 and April 1865 has been assembled and linked only to census records. These records will be useful for life-cycle comparisons of those accepted and rejected for service. Military Data: The military service and wartime medical histories of the UA and USCT men were collected from the Union Army and United States Colored Troops military service records, carded medical records, and other wartime documents. Pension Data: Wherever possible, the UA and USCT samples have been linked to pension records, including surgeon''''s certificates. About 70% of men in the Union Army sample have a pension. These records provide the bulk of the socioeconomic and demographic information on these men from the late 1800s through the early 1900s, including family structure and employment information. In addition, the surgeon''''s certificates provide rich medical histories, with an average of 5 examinations per linked recruit for the UA, and about 2.5 exams per USCT recruit. Census Data: Both early and late-age familial and socioeconomic information is collected from the manuscript schedules of the federal censuses of 1850, 1860, 1870 (incomplete), 1880, 1900, and 1910. Data Availability: All of the datasets (Military Union Army; linked Census; Surgeon''''s Certificates; Examination Records, and supporting ecological and environmental variables) are publicly available from ICPSR. In addition, copies on CD-ROM may be obtained from the CPE, which also maintains an interactive Internet Data Archive and Documentation Library, which can be accessed on the Project Website. * Dates of Study: 1850-1910 * Study Features: Longitudinal, Minority Oversamples * Sample Size: ** Union Army: 35,747 ** Colored Troops: 6,187 ** Examination Sample: 70,800 ICPSR Link: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/06836

In 2023, Switzerland led the ranking of countries with the highest average wealth per adult, with approximately 709,600 U.S. dollars per person. Luxembourg was ranked second with an average wealth of around 607,500 U.S. dollars per adult, followed by Hong Kong SAR. However, the figures do not show the actual distribution of wealth. The Gini index shows wealth disparities in countries worldwide. Does wealth guarantee a longer life? As the old adage goes, “money can’t buy you happiness”, yet wealth and income are continuously correlated to the quality of life of individuals in different countries around the world. While greater levels of wealth may not guarantee a higher quality of life, it certainly increases an individual’s chances of having a longer one. Although they do not show the whole picture, life expectancy at birth is higher in the wealthier world regions. Does money bring happiness? A number of the world’s happiest nations also feature in the list of those countries for which average income was highest. Finland, however, which was the happiest country worldwide in 2022, is missing from the list of the top twenty countries with the highest wealth per adult. As such, the explanation for this may be the fact that the larger proportion of the population has access to a high income relative to global levels. Measures of quality of life Criticism of the use of income or wealth as a proxy for quality of life led to the creation of the United Nations’ Human Development Index. Although income is included within the index, it also has other factors taken into account, such as health and education. As such, the countries with the highest human development index can be correlated to those with the highest income levels. That said, none of the above measures seek to assess the physical and mental environmental impact of a high quality of life sourced through high incomes. The happy planet index demonstrates that the inclusion of experienced well-being and ecological footprint in place of income and other proxies for quality of life results in many of the world’s materially poorer nations being included in the happiest.

In 2025, nearly 11.7 percent of the world population in extreme poverty, with the poverty threshold at 2.15 U.S. dollars a day, lived in Nigeria. Moreover, the Democratic Republic of the Congo accounted for around 11.7 percent of the global population in extreme poverty. Other African nations with a large poor population were Tanzania, Mozambique, and Madagascar. Poverty levels remain high despite the forecast decline Poverty is a widespread issue across Africa. Around 429 million people on the continent were living below the extreme poverty line of 2.15 U.S. dollars a day in 2024. Since the continent had approximately 1.4 billion inhabitants, roughly a third of Africa’s population was in extreme poverty that year. Mozambique, Malawi, Central African Republic, and Niger had Africa’s highest extreme poverty rates based on the 2.15 U.S. dollars per day extreme poverty indicator (updated from 1.90 U.S. dollars in September 2022). Although the levels of poverty on the continent are forecast to decrease in the coming years, Africa will remain the poorest region compared to the rest of the world. Prevalence of poverty and malnutrition across Africa Multiple factors are linked to increased poverty. Regions with critical situations of employment, education, health, nutrition, war, and conflict usually have larger poor populations. Consequently, poverty tends to be more prevalent in least-developed and developing countries worldwide. For similar reasons, rural households also face higher poverty levels. In 2024, the extreme poverty rate in Africa stood at around 45 percent among the rural population, compared to seven percent in urban areas. Together with poverty, malnutrition is also widespread in Africa. Limited access to food leads to low health conditions, increasing the poverty risk. At the same time, poverty can determine inadequate nutrition. Almost 38.3 percent of the global undernourished population lived in Africa in 2022.