A new World Inequality Report has issued a stark warning about the concentration of global wealth, with fewer than 60,000 of the world’s richest individuals now holding more assets than half of the planet’s population combined. The findings portray an international economic landscape increasingly shaped by the influence of a tiny elite.
According to the report, this group — representing just 0.001% of the global population — controls three times more wealth than the bottom 50%. Researchers said the scale of concentration is limiting governments’ ability to fund essential services, stating that current tax systems are failing to capture a fair share from the ultra-rich.
The report said that while tax rates are generally higher for most workers, they drop sharply for billionaires and centi-millionaires, many of whom rely on offshore structures or capital gains rather than wage income. This has created a situation in which doctors, teachers and engineers often pay a larger slice of their earnings to the state than the wealthiest individuals do.
In addition to wealth disparities, the report highlights persistent gender imbalances in the global workforce. Although total working hours have declined over time, men have seen the greatest reduction in formal work, while women continue to shoulder large amounts of unpaid care work alongside their paid jobs.
Labour income data shows women earn only one-third of global labour income, with no region achieving an equal split between men and women. The gap is widest in South Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa, where women collect less than a quarter of all labour-related earnings.
The report also draws attention to climate inequality, one of the most visible expressions of the global divide. The average carbon footprint of the top 10% income group in the United States is more than forty times larger than that of the same income group in countries such as Nigeria. A person in the global top 1% emits seventy-five times more carbon annually than someone in the bottom half of the world’s population.
While climate accountability is commonly assessed through consumption patterns, the report argues that ownership of assets is an equally significant factor. By attributing emissions to those who own factories, energy companies and other polluting enterprises, the carbon footprint of wealthy groups rises sharply. In the United States, the top 10% is responsible for 24% of consumption-linked emissions but 72% under an ownership-based measure.
The study also warns that the global financial system continues to favour wealthy nations. High-income countries benefit from low borrowing costs and strong returns on foreign investments, while many low-income countries face heavy interest payments and limited access to profitable assets. The report describes this as a “quiet” transfer of resources from poorer nations to richer ones, reducing funds available for health, education and infrastructure.
The authors argue that these patterns reflect deliberate political and institutional choices rather than economic inevitability, adding that the current system echoes older forms of global extraction in a modern context.
