[Request] Is that true?
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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![[Request] Is that true?](https://meta.cdns.win/en/2024/12/Request-Is-that-true-860x727.webp)
Not for “the world”, probably. Finding actual figures for human, per capita, income from 1970 on was a bit rough, as many third world countries would have been more estimates than actual data, but I did find this report:
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1413425/adjusted-national-income-capita-usd/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1413425/adjusted-national-income-capita-usd/)
But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, only that the poster was being poetic. Let’s drill down a bit, and look at one country in specific- the United States- which I suspect is what they were actually talking about.
In many western countries, but especially the US, there has been enormous amounts of wealth generated since 1970- US per capita GNP was $5,420 in 1970 and $80,300 in 2023. That’s a 1381.55% increase.
But, almost all of those gains have gone to the top, with middle class income remaining largely stagnant, adjusted for inflation, and lower class going down in some years.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/)
So- the answer is complicated, it depends on what stats you use. For much of the third world, things will have gotten better, but for many first world countries, the wealthy took much of the gains.
If anyone could find the data set they used, I would love to take a look. “The world is *x%* richer” is a weird thing to say. Looking at just the US and just 1989-2022 (https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-year/), it looks like household wealth among the top 1% increased about 2.5x in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Compare that to the median, which increased about 1.75x, and you can see a hint of the kind of change they are describing.
And 1.75x vs 2.5x doesn’t look all that huge, but looking at it another way, the top 1% family’s net worth in 1989 was about 50x the median. By 2022, it was up to 71x. The top is getting farther from the middle.
Basically what it means is the ratio between these two numbers, 700% / 4000%, is the fraction of the world’s total wealth owned by the top 0.01%.
7/40 is exactly 17.5%. [This report](https://economics.princeton.edu/working-papers/top-wealth-in-america-new-estimates-under-heterogenous-returns/) says the wealth fraction of the top 0.01% in the united states is about 10%. So it’s reasonably in the right ballpark. I wouldn’t say it’s very precisely correct without more investigation. I would also expect the global fraction in 1970 was probably less than the USA today, but not sure.
Kinda of a dumb mesure. The market value of an iphone in the 1970 would be in the tens of thousands. We live very very richer lives today. BUT the price of rent (due to low supply of houses in cities) make us feel like no money is left after it
Not a chance. The “average person” in the world is not a middle class American. It’s a Chinese or Indian who was dirt poor in the 70s and is far richer today.
Absolutely not.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL
Median global consumption in 1990 was $3 a day, in 2024 it’s over $8. That’s accounting for inflation as that is all in 2017 $s.
The figure of 8% is anything but true. Average Chinese in 1970 is poor as fuck, in 2024 he’s wealthier by many times. It’s an enormous country so if we want to have 8% globally, we need several big countries’ citizens to become significantly poorer. But most of the world became wealthier at this time
This is laughably false. The chinese make up about 20% of the worlds population and 50 years ago their gdp per capita was roughly about $100. Now its about $12000. This is 120x which even if you said that was all the worlds gdp growth (which it isn’t) means that the average persons networth has gone up by a LOT more than 8%. Besides the original statement has so many factors such as inflation and global wealth distribution that its hard to say how accurate it is.
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Bbbut one day I could become a billionaire so I will daily do my part to ensure that it’s still the world’s most protected class when I become one of them!
Don’t be pessimistic my cousin who is my age worked hard and now makes more than my family has made more than I can imagine in a single day
And MAGA voters just made it a whole lot worse. Since 1980, some 50 trillion has been transferred up to the 1 percent. I blame what I call the tax cut presidents, starting with Reagan. All have Rs next to their name.
Hard to discuss without the source, but the last sentence is false, poverty and extreme poverty have been reduced over the previous two centuries and incomes have increased, they did the math:
[Data appendix – The fight against global poverty: 200 years of progress and still a very long way to go – Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/history-of-poverty-data-appendix)
And with billionaires controlling the majority of media, they have used millionaires to tell the rest of us that we’re the problem, not them.
That the only thing separating you from them is you just need to work harder. Like WTF.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that is true but I’m hoping someone else will go through the effort of actually proving it. I’m just here to point out that up until the 70’s everyone got equally rich but then Nixon realized he didn’t have enough money for the current forever war and got rid of the Bretton Woods system so that the military industrial complex wouldn’t be sad
Global GDP has grown significantly since 1970; according to World Bank data, the global GDP (adjusted for inflation) has increased approximately 9-10 times (900-1000%) since the 1970s. This suggests that the claim of 700% growth is in line with historical trends.
While global wealth has increased, the distribution is unequal. Adjusting for inflation, global median incomes have risen, but much less than the overall growth rate of the wealthiest. A report from Oxfam indicates the disparity between income growth at the top and the middle or bottom. Whether it’s specifically 8% depends on how averages are calculated (mean vs. median), it is however in the right area.
Wealth among the richest individuals has surged, driven by factors like compounding investments, tax structures, and globalization. Studies from institutions like Credit Suisse and Thomas Piketty’s research on inequality confirm that wealth concentration has increased dramatically over the decades. This claim about the 0.01% being 4000% richer might not be precise but reflects a well-documented trend, if it isn’t yet true, it soon will be.
While it might not be precise according to the data I’ve found, the claims about disproportionate wealth distribution are grounded in reality, though exact percentages might vary depending on data sources, and given the amount of wealth that is unaccounted (think Panama), it is probably far worse than our figures suggest.
Well actually the average wealth per person is not at all affected by the disparity between rich and poor. So the world being 700% richer should imply that (given the population doubled more or less) average wealth increased by 350%. Of course Median wealth might have not risen that drastically.
The general idea of wealth polarization is true: the richest are more rich than ever in history while the average Joe can’t afford a house anymore.
But the math is complex (maybe in purpose), requires to consider variables like GDP, inflation, devaluation, price of goods, etc.
DR;TL if being robbed everyday makes me 8% richer, then rob me three times a day. OOP is a jealous idiot, so who cares if his math is correct. 8% or 80%, I’ll still take being richer over the alternative.
There are roughly 160million households in the US.
The 99th percentile (the 1%), about 1.6million households, control 33% of all US wealth in 2024.
The 99th-90th percentile, 14.4million households, control 31% of 2024 US wealth.
The 90th-50th percentile, 64million households, control 33% of 2024 US wealth.
The bottom 50th-0 percentile, 80million households, control 2.5% of 2024 US wealth totals.
Breaking down the 1%, the top top 99.9th percentile, (the 0.1% group of 160,000 households) control 15% of the entire US household total wealth.
Before the 1980’s. the combined ‘1%’ controlled 15% of US wealth totals, with the ‘0.1%’ controlling roughly 5% of that wealth.
From 1980 to 2024, the bottom 50% total wealth percentage has dropped from 4% to 2.5%. The 90th-50th percentile of wealth has dropped from 40% to 33%. The top 1% has increased from 15% to 33%. The top 0.1% has increased from 5% to 15% of total US wealth.
What happened? Tv Star Ronald Regan winning the presidency in 1980 and Reaganomics promise of trickle down economics. He lowered taxes, where the top marginal individual income tax rate fell from 70.1% to 28.4%, widen income inequality (as shown above) and exploded the deficit from $712 billion in 1980 to $2.1trillion in 1988.
Regan’s campaign slogan was ”We Can Make America Great Again.” Regan’s main campaign promise was reducing the federal government spending and size with the promised to end ”trust me government” regulations with drastic cuts to ‘red tape’ and government oversight.
Being robbed necessitates ownership. It was never yours to begin with, so you haven’t been robbed of shit. All you anti-1%ers need to get your own jealousy under control and quit being so worried about how much random people you don’t know are worth on paper.