The 1% are getting richer and its not going to stop any time soon

Will Martin
Tuesday 10 April 2018 19:19 BST
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The five richest billionaires in the world

The world's richest one per cent of people will control close to two-thirds of all global wealth by the year 2030, according to report produced by the House of Commons library, the research arm of the UK's parliament.

The global elite currently control around 50 per cent of wealth around the world, but that is likely to keep increasing, the Commons research, commissioned by Labour MP Liam Byrne, said.

If trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, the report notes, the so-called 1 per cent will control 64 per cent of global wealth in just 12 years time.

According to The Guardian, which first reported the statistics, the wealth of the richest 1 per cent "has been growing at an average of 6 per cent a year – much faster than the 3 per cent growth in wealth of the remaining 99 per cent of the world’s population," since the financial crisis.

If the trend continues, the 1 per cent will have a total net worth of $305 trillion, more than double the $140 trillion they control in 2018.

"If we don’t take steps to rewrite the rules of how our economies work, then we condemn ourselves to a future that remains unequal for good," Mr Byrne, the report's commissioner said.

"That’s morally bad, and economically disastrous, risking a new explosion in instability, corruption and poverty."

Last year, Swiss lender Credit Suisse published a report which found that the world's richest 1% of families and individuals already hold over half of global wealth, and argued that inequality is still worsening almost a decade after the worst global recession since the 1930s.

"The bottom half of adults collectively own less than 1% of total wealth, the richest decile (top 10% of adults) owns 88 per cent of global assets, and the top percentile alone accounts for half of total household wealth," the Credit Suisse report said.

Put another way: "The top 1 per cent own 50.1 per cent of all household wealth in the world."

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Read the original article on Business Insider UK. © 2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.

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