A report from the World Institute for Development Economics Research reveals that you need a little over $650,000 in assets to be classified in the top 1 per cent of the world's wealthholders. After our property boom, maybe a few more Western Australians qualify, on paper at least.
See below for a synopsis of the report from the CPA website.
In the year 2000 the richest 2 per cent of adults in the world owned more than half of global household wealth, while the bottom half owned barely 1 per cent, according to the most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken, conducted by the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER).
At the time of the study, assets of US$2,200 per adult placed a household in the top half of the world's wealth distribution. To be counted among the richest 10 per cent of adults required US$61,000 in assets, and more than US$500,000 was needed to belong to the richest 1 per cent - a group which comprised 37 million members worldwide.
Unsurprisingly, wealth was heavily concentrated in North America, Europe, and high-income Asia-Pacific countries, which collectively held almost 90 per cent of total world wealth. Although North America had only 6 per cent of the world adult population, it accounted for 34 per cent of household wealth.
China occupied much of the middle third of the global distribution, while India, Africa and low-income Asian countries dominated the bottom third.
Average wealth in the richest countries, Japan and the USA, amounted to US$181,000 and US$144,000 per person respectively. Of the poorest, India possessed per capita assets of just US$1,100, while Indonesia reported only US$1,400 per capita.
The WIDER study was the first of its kind to cover all countries in the world and all major components of household wealth - including financial assets and debts, land, buildings and other tangible property.
http://www.cpaaustralia.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/cpa/hs.xsl/1017_20930_ENA_HTML.htm
