Trend Persistently high income and wealth inequality within countries

Summary

Drawing on international analyses, the report holds that without policy intervention inequality rises or stays high. While the Global South developed, Western economies grew far richer still, so large wealth gaps persist between the US and Europe on one side and African countries on the other, and major conflicts such as those in Congo and Sudan deepen poverty. Global income inequality is falling only slowly, and that decline rests on the progress of a handful of countries such as China and India. Within many countries inequality has stayed high, with top incomes growing faster than those in the middle and at the bottom. Wealth gaps are even sharper than income gaps, with the top 1 percent holding an outsized share of global wealth, and inequality also shows up in access to education, health, life expectancy and exposure to environmental harm.