‘Top 1% captured over a third of wealth growth’: World Inequality Report

What is the News?

The World Inequality Report 2022 has been released.

About World Inequality Report 2022 

The report has been produced by a team of world-leading economists. One of the co-authors is economist Thomas Piketty.

Purpose: The report is the most authoritative and comprehensive account available of global trends in inequality.

What are the key findings of the report?

Firstly, since the mid-1990s, the richest 1% captured 38% of wealth growth at the global level.

Secondly, the richest 10% own around 60-80% of wealth and the poorest half systematically own less than 5% of the wealth.

Thirdly, women, today, earn just one-third of all labour income in the world. This situation has increased since the 1990s but at a very slow rate. If we continue at this rate, the world needs to wait at least a century to reach gender parity.

What is the recommendation given by the report?

Governments should intervene to tackle inequality with social and tax policies.

Countries should introduce a progressive rate of wealth tax, with tax rates according to the value of the total amount of wealth owned.

Source: This post is based on the article “‘Top 1% captured over a third of wealth growth’: World Inequality Report” published in Indian Express on 2nd December 2021.