Urgent action needed to fight extreme worldwide inequality, report says

Fewer than 60,000 people - 0.001% of the world’s population - control three times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of humanity, according to a report that argues global inequality has reached such extremes that urgent action has become essential.

- Jon Henley

The authoritative World Inequality Report 2026, based on data compiled by 200 researchers, also finds that the top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90%, while the poorest half captures less than 10% of total global earnings.

Wealth - the value of people’s assets - is even more concentrated than income, or earnings from work and investments, the report finds, with the richest 10% of the world’s population owning 75% of wealth and the bottom half just 2%.

In almost every region, the top 1% is wealthier than the bottom 90% combined, the report finds, with wealth inequality increasing rapidly around the world.

“The result is a world in which a tiny minority commands unprecedented financial power, while billions remain excluded from even basic economic stability.” the authors, led by Ricardo Gémez-Carrera of the Paris School of Economics, write.

The share of wealth held by the top 0.001% has grown from almost 4% in 1995 to more than 6%, the report says, while the wealth of multimillionaires had increased by about 8% annually since the 1990s - nearly twice the rate of the bottom 50%.

The authors, who include the influential French economist Thomas Piketty, say that while inequality had “long been a defining feature of the global economy”, by 2025 it had “reached levels that demand urgent attention”.