by NineteenEighty9
Source: Credit Suisse global wealth report
The point of this post is to hopefully help dispel this myth that the US is somehow in decline (outright or relative), when there is zero data supporting this. To the contrary, in many ways the US has been pulling away from other nations in relative terms. I’ll elaborate below…
Wealth creation is a great indicator of the underlying health of a country and a direct reflection of its economic systems ability to grow and sustain prosperity for its people.
I see many comments on this sub that make grand claims about US declinism, but never any hard data to back up these statements. It’s one thing to claim the US is reducing its international commitments (which is true) its another to claim it’s in either outright or relative decline (neither of which is true).
According to the world wealth report, last year the US created more wealth than China and the EU combined.
The US, China, and Europe contributed the most towards global wealth growth with USD 3.8 trillion, USD 1.9 trillion and USD 1.1 trillion respectively.
Since the reports inception the US has lead each year in overall wealth creation. If you read the report it becomes pretty clear that even in relative terms the US has been pulling away from both China and the European Union.
Wealth is the source of all national power. Without it you cannot spend on R&D or sustaining a large armed forces (among many other things).
For the past decade, global wealth creation has centered around China and the United States. This year, the United States extended its un- broken spell of wealth gains, which began after the global financial crisis in 2008. The United States also accounts for 40% of dollar million- aires worldwide and for 40% of those in the top 1% of global wealth distribution.
China did overtake the US to become the country with the most people in the top 10% of global wealth, but still produces much less overall new wealth than America each year. This seems to point to higher concentrations of wealth in China among its richest citizens.
China overtook the United States this year to become the country with most people in the top 10% of global wealth distribution.
The average American is 45% wealthier today than they were in 2006.
Average wealth was USD 211,000 in 2000, and rose fairly steadily until 2006, before falling during the global financial crisis. Wealth per adult has now fully recovered, and is 45% above the 2006 level.
In terms of overall net wealth the US ($110 Trillion) dwarfs both the whole of Europe ($90 Trillion) and China ($63 trillion)
Up until covid global wealth had been growing at a healthy pace. The worlds “net worth” is now over $360,000,000,000,000.
Aggregate global wealth rose by USD 9.1 trillion to USD 360.6 trillion, representing a growth rate of 2.6%. Wealth per adult grew by just 1.2% to USD 70,850 per adult in mid-2019.
Edit:
The report discusses wealth inequality as well, I found this statement informative…
Second, the report looks at the evolution of wealth inequality. The bottom half of wealth holders collectively accounted for less than 1% of total global wealth in mid-2019, while the richest 10% own 82% of global wealth and the top 1% alone own 45%. Global inequality fell during the first part of this century when a narrowing of gaps between countries was rein- forced by declining inequality within countries. While advances by emerging markets contin- ued to narrow the gaps between countries, inequality within countries grew as economies recovered after the global financial crisis. As a result, the top 1% of wealth holders increased their share of world wealth. This trend appears to have abated in 2016 and global inequality is now likely to edge downward in the immediate future.