Global millionaire population sees growth.
Based on research conducted by a consulting firm called Capgemini, there's been a huge surge in the number of millionaires worldwide and their combined wealth has never been higher. The number of people who have assets worth at least a million dollars, not including their primary residence, jumped by 5.1% last year to reach 22.8 million. As a result, their total wealth increased by 4.7% to $86.8 trillion.
Capgemini has been monitoring this trend annually since 1997 in 71 different countries. This means new records for both the number of millionaires and their combined wealth. This comes after the richest people suffered their biggest wealth losses in a decade in the previous year.
The primary reason for this rise in wealth is the performance of the stock markets. The US tech index was up by 43%, the S&P500 by 24%, and the DAX by 20%, while the CAC40, the biggest French stock index, saw a 16% rise. Capgemini attributes this to the excitement surrounding generative AI and its potential impact on the economy.
Interestingly, the growth in millionaires and billionaires was particularly strong in North America, where the number of such individuals increased by 7.1% and their wealth grew by 7.2%.
The increasing wealth gap and the escalating wealth of these individuals have sparked debates about fair taxation in recent years, with some demanding a global minimum tax on the world's biggest fortunes. Brazil and France have already proposed this within the G20 group of countries.
