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Personal wealth is distributed so unevenly across the world that the richest two per cent of adults own more than 50 per cent of the world?s assets while the poorest half hold only 1 per cent of wealth.
A survey released on Tuesday shows that middle-income countries with high growth rates still have a long way to go before they have a hope of catching up with the levels of prosperity of the richest.
Adults with more than $2,200 of assets were in the top half of the global wealth league table, while those with more than $61,000 were in the top 10 per cent, according to the data from the World Institute fpr Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-Wider).
To belong to the top 1 per cent of the world?s wealthiest adults you would need more than $500,000, something that 37m adults have achieved.
So much of the world?s wealth is concentrated in few hands that if all the world?s wealth was distributed evenly, each person would have $20,500 of assets to use.
Almost 90 per cent of the world?s wealth is held in North America, Europe and high-income Asian and Pacific countries, such as Japan and Australia.
While North America has 6 per cent of the world?s adult population, it accounts for 34 per cent of household wealth.
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