Global wealth rises as middle-class gains mask widening ownership gaps
UBS says personal wealth grew 10.8% in 2025, even as median wealth fell in most of the markets it tracks.
By Sofia Marchetti · World Affairs Correspondent
3 min read
Global personal wealth grew at its fastest pace in years in 2025, according to UBS, adding nearly 1 million millionaires while reducing the share of adults with very little wealth. The same report shows a sharper split beneath that headline gain: median wealth fell in most of the markets UBS tracks.
The UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, released Tuesday, covers 56 markets that the bank says account for more than 92% of global wealth. UBS said total personal wealth rose 10.8% last year, more than twice the growth rates recorded in 2023 and 2024 and the strongest increase since 2017.
UBS said the share of adults with less than $10,000 in wealth has fallen from nearly 75% in 2000 to just over 41% today. That shift tracks with other research showing a broader global middle class, especially in Asia.
A larger middle, led by Asia
World Data Lab reported in 2025 that the global consumer class had become the world’s dominant group for the first time, citing growth tied to industrialization in Asia, Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The Brookings Institution has projected that the global middle class will reach 5.3 billion people by 2030, with about two-thirds of that group in Asia.
The change marks a major departure from the older view of global wealth as a pyramid with the United States near the top and poorer countries forming a wide base. Economists at Columbia University and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have found that, as recently as 2009, Americans below the U.S. poverty line still ranked around the 70th percentile of the global income distribution.
UBS’s latest data points to a different split inside wealthy economies. Average wealth can rise rapidly when asset values climb, while the median person sees little benefit if ownership remains concentrated.
The U.S. gap
UBS ranked the United States second globally for average wealth per adult, at $696,277, behind Switzerland. On median wealth, UBS placed the U.S. 28th, at $68,998.
The bank also reported a U.S. Gini coefficient of 0.77, a measure of inequality in which higher readings show greater concentration. UBS said that reading was the sixth highest among the markets it tracked, behind the United Arab Emirates, Russia, South Africa, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
The report also highlighted faster gains among people with $5 million to $100 million in wealth. UBS said this group’s collective wealth has compounded at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 8.7% since 2000, compared with 4% for what it calls “everyday millionaires.” In mainland China, UBS said people with $50 million to $100 million in wealth saw real annual compounding of nearly 31% over the same period.
The World Inequality Report 2026 describes an even narrower concentration at the top. It says 56,000 people, representing the top 0.001%, now hold more wealth than the poorest 4 billion people combined, and that their share of global wealth has nearly doubled since 1995.
UBS chief economist Paul Donovan said in the report that the widening middle of the global wealth distribution is the larger trend, while also saying wealth inequality is becoming more visible because of social media. Donovan said governments are likely to look for ways to mobilize wealth as they try to lower debt-financing costs.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.