The World Inequality Report 2026 has said that global inequality has reached levels that are no longer sustainable and need immediate action. The report noted that fewer than 60,000 people, around 0.001% of the world’s population, now control wealth that is three times greater than that held by the poorest half of humanity.
Prepared by a group of about 200 researchers, the study found that the richest 10% of earners worldwide receive more income than the remaining 90% combined, while the bottom half of the population accounts for less than 10% of total global income.
According to the report, wealth is even more heavily concentrated than income. It said the top 10% own about three-fourths of all global wealth, whereas the poorest 50% together hold only around 2%. In almost every region, the report observed, the wealth of the top 1% exceeds that of the bottom 90% combined, and wealth inequality is continuing to intensify across the world.
The authors, led by Paris School of Economics researcher Ricardo Gómez-Carrera, said this has produced a situation in which a very small elite wields extraordinary financial power while billions of people lack even basic economic security.
The report also pointed out that the share of global wealth owned by the top 0.001% has increased from close to 4% in 1995 to more than 6% at present. It added that the assets of multimillionaires have been growing at an average rate of about 8% a year since the 1990s, nearly double the pace of wealth growth seen among the poorest half of the global population, Maktoob Media reported.
The authors of the report, including economist Thomas Piketty, said inequality has long been a defining feature of the global economy but had, by 2025, reached a level that requires urgent international attention.
They underlined that tackling inequality is crucial not only to ensure fairness, but also to strengthen economic resilience, safeguard democratic institutions and support environmental sustainability.
Prepared in collaboration with the UN Development Programme, the report draws on the world’s largest open-access inequality database and plays a significant role in shaping global policy discussions.
In the preface, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz reiterated the call for an international panel on inequality, modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to track trends and provide policy guidance based on evidence.
The report also pointed out that unequal access to opportunities feeds into unequal outcomes. As an example, it noted that yearly spending on education per child in Europe and North America is more than 40 times higher than in sub-Saharan Africa, a disparity far greater than the gap in GDP per capita.