In 2021, the ranks of the global “ultra high net worth” (UHNW) individuals increased by 46,000.
A record of 218,200 of the world’s richest people benefited from the recovery from the pandemic.
According to a report by investment bank Credit Suisse, the number of UHNW people, those with assets of more than 6Billion jumped as the super-rich benefited from soaring house prices and booming stock markets.
The number of people in the UHNW bracket has increased by more than 50 per cent over the past two years.
The huge increase in wealth of the richest 0.00004% of the world’s adult population comes as billions of low and middle income people, many of whom saw their savings wiped out during the pandemic struggle to cope with soaring food and energy prices.
“The strong rise in financial assets resulted in an increase in inequality in 2021,” read part of the report by Credit Suisse.
“The rise in inequality is probably due to the surge in the value of financial assets during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Credit Suisse’s Report also found that “the recovery of macroeconomic activity in a low interest environment produced exceptionally favourable conditions for household wealth growth during 2021.
Anthony Shorrocks, an economics professor and an author of the report, said there had been “almost an explosion of wealth last year, probably higher than any other year we have ever recorded”.
The increase in wealth has not been distributed fairly. The richest one per cent of the global population increased their share of all the world’s wealth for a second year running to 46per cent, up from 44 per cent in 2020.
The number of US dollar millionaires increased by 5.2 million during 2021 to a total of 62.5 million, just under the 67 million population of the UK.
Shorrocks said the number of millionaires was becoming so large that it was becoming “an increasingly irrelevant measure of wealth”.
The number of US millionaires increased by 2.5 million – almost half of all new millionaires minted across the world.
“This is the largest increase in millionaire numbers recorded for any country in any year this century and reinforces the rapid rise in millionaire numbers seen in the US since 2016,” read the report.
