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.
The authoritative World Inequality Report 2026, based on data compiled by 200 researchers, also found that the top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90% combined, while the poorest half captures less than 10% of total global earnings.
Wealth – the value of people’s assets – was even more concentrated than income, or earnings from work and investments, the report found, 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% was wealthier than the bottom 90% combined, the report found, 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 Gómez-Carrera of the Paris School of Economics, wrote.
It’s gone from can’t everyone just pay your fair share of taxes?
To can’t we at least tax the rich?
How about just the 1%?
Ok…, how about just the 0.001%?
And then somehow conservatives leaders will convince a voter base to take to the streets with pitchforks and torches, claiming it’s tyranny, then once they’re elected, the leaders will still tax the fucking voter base.
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Those puny little ants outnumber us 100 to 1. And if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life!
But we’ve just been playing all summer.
I feel like numbers at this point just are pointless. It’s like, can we use vocabulary that actually describes the situation instead of updating this every time the decimal point shifts?
Describing it in terms of wealth is kind of dumb. It gives the idea that the systems that caused this (Imperialism, colonialism, capitalism) are the solution. Like, the global South just needs “investment”. The numbers are this bad because of a century of western “investment” in its exploitation the global South.
There isn’t a number attached to this that somehow fixes the problem when we reach it. This is about what essentially amounts to slavery and subjugation of the majority of this planet. The language of these news articles is so passive. Like it’s describing the amount of stars in the galaxy.
Remind me again how capitalism isn’t the problem? lmao
Do you think in feudal times things were better?
Well, I’ll tell you one thing. The solution for some of the bad monarchies should be taking place today but for the bad people running majority of countries but nobody has the guts to pull one for the team.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
what’s wrong with a billionaire having $1B worth of yachts, while the rest of us are struggling to feed ourselves? what’s wrong with that?? (/s)
according to a report that argues global inequality has reached such extremes that ugrgent action ha.cms become essential.
I guarantee you that that 0.001% agrees, there are too many of them, that should be 0.00001% instead
Fuck the rich!
I call for hard limits on personal networth and the worth of companies
No single person should be able to control more than 10M, companies shouldn’t be worth over 1 billion
Anything over that, goes to taxes.
It’s a single basic rule that requires more rules below for sure to ensure it works well, but this should be codified in a world wide constitution.
This way, nobody gets crazy amounts of money, nobody will have to be poor because the government will have a huge income that it can use for universal healthcare, education, universal basic income, etc…
Crime would go down the drain because nobody NEEDS to be a criminal anymore. There will still be a few anti social elements but good luck finding people wanting that life if they can just have a good, safe, and happy life.
Bribery and corruption? How even, and why take the risk?
There is no logical reason why anyone should have to be allowed to control this much wealth.
Investment companies must all be dismantled and all their funds transferred to independent non profit organisations that, again, won’t be able to control more than over a billion. Government can transfer money to these foundations so that loads of people can have investments for startups or whatnot
We’d need similar simple rules for governments too. All governments must be democracies, and all should follow a world constitution where we have a few basic rules that make sure nobody will ever get too much power.
It doesn’t require a lot of changes at the top. Basically these three rules, all the rest flows out of those rules. We can keep capitalism and use it’s raw power to generate resources for everyone.
What this needs is political will, this needs people to want this, need this.
It doesn’t require a lot of changes
All governments must be democracies
I didn’t know World War Three was the simplest way to world peace
No single person should be able to control more than 10M
A small family farm earning less than 350k a year could easily need that in land, capital, etc. just to operate.
But I hear you, somewhere between 10 and 50M would be ideal.
Suck on that 0.999% of the 1%!
Does that mean, in a theoretical world where wealth is by all means easily distributed, you’ve got a mere 0.001% that could triple the per-individual wealth of half of the worlds population—if we just took theirs and passed it out?
I’ve heard philosophers say, it’s a figure of authority’s continuous responsibility to justify its existence. Given, wealth is influence and influence is authority, should we not audit cases where wealth is so concentrated and ask ourselves question like ”how is this contributing to the benefit of all?”
I’d.argue, we shouldn’t allow such concentration of wealth in the first place—meaning there should be a preventative plan that Just Works. This can be compatible with whatever else you want, free markets or not. Be it a stronger progressive tax or a cultural change toward worker collectives owning the means to production, there just shouldn’t be such wealthy entities.
The concentration on wealth leads to concentration of influence, meaning politics and media. We’ve had a shrinking number of independent major news organizations since the 1980s. A 1983 analysis showed that about 50 companies “controlled more than half” of U.S. media. Today, there are estimates of a handful of people owning the vast majority. Not to mention, they can apparently choose to purchase massive Social Media platforms (like Twitter) immediately before an election.
Right now, though, we have this problem where such silos already exist. They use their influence, vast as it is, to protect and enrich themselves—PACs, Super PACs, gratuities, lobbying firms, and more recently meme coins. All acting as a conduit to influence politics and legislation. We can’t make progress while these issues continue to stand in our way, can we? So, what do you do?
That’s a crazy stat if true, maybe we should just tax those people.
we need to organize. seriously!
Nifty. Each person in that top 0.001% has the combined wealth of 68,333 people just to themselves. That’s a whole ass city.
No comments about the “accept all or reject all and subscribe” really says something about no one ever reading the article. And just to be clear, I’m in full agreement of how fucked this is. It just really stuck out to me. And I highly doubt everyone who commented used some extention, script or service to get past that, I feel pretty confident that almost none did. If most did at least one would have posted a link so everyone else could get the full article.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome senator Bernie Sanders
