World's Top 1% Own Half World's Assets, And Income Inequality Rises

For the first time since the global financial crisis, it is found that the world's wealth is shrinking. It has come down by $12.4 trillion in one year, mainly due to currency fluctuations.

However, according to Credit Suisse in its 2015 Global Wealth Report, there is still a lot of inequality in the income distribution, even as the top 1 percent of households "account for half of all assets in the world."

Since 2000, the gap between the rich and poor has widened so much, at a level "not seen for almost a century," the Swiss investment bank wrote in its annual report. It has tried to guage the financial and physical assets of 4.7 billion people.

Even as the US dollar is getting stronger, it also plays a role in the "contraction of the overall global wealth", which came down by $12.4 trillion to $250.1 trillion. Hence, the net worth has shrunk, if valued in dollars, in every region except North America and China, according to CNBC.

"Wealth inequality changes slowly over time, so it is difficult to identify the drivers of these trends. However, the value of financial assets - especially company securities - is likely to be an important factor because wealthier individuals hold a disproportionate share of their assets in financial form," pointed out the report.

After the 2007-2008 economic crisis, the global household wealth has come down. This has impacted the number of millionaires, which rose from 13.7 million at the turn of the century to 36.1 million in 2014, which fell to 33.7 million this year due to exchange rate effects, reports Business Insider.

Hence, it has discovered that "the poorest half" of the population has an ownership of even less than 1 percent of the assets.

Since 2008, there has been a rise in the financial assets, which has been advantageous mainly to the moneyed sections of society, who retain a "disproportionate amount of capital".

In the last decade and a half, since 2000, about 34 million people have ownership and control over $112.9 trillion of assets, or 45.2 percent of the world's wealth. While China showed a "fivefold rise in wealth", India's growth is less but still sharp.

"The rise of 146 percent (in millionaires) since 2000 reflects population growth and the fact that inflation progressively lowers the bar for membership of the millionaire club. Nevertheless, the number of millionaires has still grown significantly after discounting for these factors," the report said.