One of the debates sweeping through parliaments around the world concerns the increasing concentration of wealth in a few hands.

In recent years, the wealth of the richest has grown rapidly, while the middle and lower classes have stagnated. This has been one reason larger wealth gap Those with incomes under $100,000 to those with over $1 million to invest. Also known as HNWIs (High net worth individuals or high net worth individuals)

But even within this privileged group of people, which currently makes up 1.1% of the world’s millionaire population, there are the rich and the wealthy. We usually talk about a country’s millionaires, but within this group of millionaires there are classes and as a general rule, wealth tends to accumulate at the top and this benefits the ultra-rich the most and they will increasingly become so.

Distribution of wealth among millionaires

The Private Wealth Migration 2024 report, prepared by investment migration consultancy Henley & Partners, not only projects which countries millionaires will move to in 2024, but also analyses how many millionaires there are in each country and what type they are.

The study distinguishes between millionaires who have more than $1 million to invest; centillionaires who have more than $100 million to invest; or billionaires who have a multibillion-dollar portfolio to invest. The study excludes millionaires’ primary homes from the wealth calculation.

So, if a person in the United States lives in a two million dollar home and only has $100,000 worth of assets, they are not considered a millionaire unless they sell the home and convert it into cash.

To make the presentation of the data collected in the Henley & Partners report more appealing, VisualCapitalist.com created a graphic that shows: Which country has the most millionaires and how rich are they?.

Millionaires, centillionaires and billionaires by country

It comes as no surprise to anyone that the United States is the country with the largest population of millionaires in the world. The UBS 2023 global wealth report has already shown this difference in the millionaire population, grouped in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles or Chicago.

Henley & Partners research shows that the United States 5,492,400 people with assets over $1 million9,850 people have over 100 million. A much smaller number are the 788 billionaires in the United States, with assets over a billion dollars.

The population of centimillionaires is only 0.18% compared to millionaires, and 8% among centimillionaires and billionaires. In other words, reaching the first million dollars is relatively “easy”, but the real challenge is to move up to the upper segment. Despite this, the number of millionaires has increased by 62% in the last decade.

China, the second country in terms of the number of millionaires, has a slightly flatter distribution of wealth, with 862,400 millionaires and 2,352 centillionaires. This means that the population over $100 million represents 0.27% of the millionaire population, and is above the US in terms of the distance between the two segments.

The same goes for the 305 billionaires recorded by China, representing 12.97% of the millionaire population. This suggests that while it is true that there are fewer millionaires in China, Distribution of wealth among 1% of the population The rich are more homogeneous across different millionaire ranks. Despite this more steady growth, China has seen phenomenal growth in its millionaire population, exceeding 92% between 2013 and 2023.

Germany is the third country in terms of the total number of millionaires, with a population of 806,100 having a fortune of over one million dollars, 1,075 people having a fortune of over $100 million and only 82 people having a fortune of over one billion.

If we look at the percentage differences between the three groups, Germany’s situation is somewhat more similar to the US pattern, with a 0.13% difference between the millionaires and centillionaires population and a 7.63% difference between the billionaires and centillionaires population. Germany’s millionaire population has increased by 15% in the last decade.

Powers in distress

Japan and the United Kingdom are fourth and fifth on the list of countries with the largest populations of millionaires, and they have seen their numbers drop by 6% and 8% over the past decade. Differences between different millionaire groups they also contract.

In Japan, there are 754,800 millionaires, 748 centimillionaires and 39 people worth over a billion, while in the UK, there are 602,500 millionaires, 830 centimillionaires and 75 people worth over a billion. So proportionally, the distribution of millionaires in the UK is more inclined to large fortunes than in Japan.

India ranks tenth in the table. Although the absolute number of people considered millionaires in this country is lower than in other countries (326,400 millionaires), 1,044 registered centillionaires leave a percentage of 0.32%, leaving a smaller gap between millionaires and centillionaires than in China. A similar situation occurs in the billionaire segment with 120 citizens, representing 11.49% of centillionaires.

These differences suggest that while India’s millionaire population has increased by 85% in the last decade, growth has been steady across the board among the ultra-rich, with no major concentration of wealth at the top end of the rich. The wealth of a country with a population of between 1,370 and 1,390 million is relative to the rest of its population.

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Image | VisualCapitalist.com