How does the UK compare in global inequality? - The World Inequality Report 2018 is created by the World Inequality Lab and details global income and wealth inequality. Take a look at how the UK rates.

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Global income - The report states that at the global level, average per-adult national income is €1,340 per month.

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North America and Europe - North Americans enjoy an income three times higher than global average (€4,220), while Europeans have an income two times higher (€2,630).

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China - Average per-adult income in China is slightly lower than the global average at €1,170. The nation represents 19% of global income.

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Growing inequality - After a historical decline from the 1920s to the 1970s, income inequality is reportedly on the rise in most regions of the world.

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Change in a generation - In 1980, China represented only 3% of total global income. The report states that since then, growth has slowed in Western Europe and skyrocketed in Asia, China in particular, following the modernization of its economy and its opening to global markets.

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Sub-Saharan Africa and South America - In the same period, average incomes in sub-Saharan Africa and South America fell behind the world average.

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Widening divide - The report states that in the industrialized world, Anglo-Saxon countries have experienced a sharp rise in inequality since the 1980s. In the United States, the bottom 50% income share collapsed while the top share boomed. 

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Brazil, the Middle East, and South Africa - Inequality is described as extreme in Brazil, the Middle East, and South Africa. These are the world’s most unequal regions, where the top 10% of earners capture 55 to 65% of national income.

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Wealth inequality in the UK - UK wealth inequality has shown a moderate increase since the 1980s, with the share of total wealth owned by the top 1% (almost half million individuals) rising from 15% in 1984 to 20 to 22% by 2013.

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The 0.1% - The report explains that the increase in wealth concentration is confined to the top 0.5%, and, in particular, to the top 0.1% (the richest 50,000 British people), whose share of total wealth doubled from 4.5 to 9% between 1984 and 2013.

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Average British wealth - By 2013, the average wealth of British adults was approximately €173,000 (£141,000) in constant 2016 market values.

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Uneven distribution - But it is reported that the average wealth of the bottom 90% of the population was approximately a third of this nationwide average at just €83,200 (£68,000), suggesting that a significant proportion of the bottom 50% of the distribution have negligible wealth. 

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Housing - The report states that the substantial rise in owner-occupation during the 20th century, additionally fostered by the sale of public housing, aided the reduction in wealth inequality to historically low levels in the 1980s, as the wealth share of the top 1% fell to 15%. 

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Buy to let - But it argues that in the 1990s there was a return of private landlords as a result of the “buy to let” trend.

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United States -  In the United States, wealth inequality has increased dramatically over the last thirty years and has mostly been driven by the rise of the top 0.1% wealth owners.

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Divided nation - Income inequality in the United States is among the highest of all rich countries. 

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US income gap - The share of national income earned by the top 1% of adults in 2014 was 20.2%. This is compared to the 12,5% share earned by the bottom 50% of the adult population.

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Stagnation - The report states that average pre-tax real national income per adult has increased 60% since 1980, but it has stagnated for the bottom 50% at around $16,500.

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Health spending - It explains that while post-tax cash incomes of the bottom 50% have also stagnated, a large part of the modest post-tax income growth of this group has been eaten up by increased health spending.

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Capital - The report states that income has boomed at the top. While the upsurge of top incomes was first a labour-income phenomenon in 1980s and 1990s, it has mostly been a capital-income phenomenon since 2000.

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Taxes - It argues that the combination of an increasingly less progressive tax regime and a transfer system that favours the middle class implies that, even after taxes and all transfers, bottom 50% income growth has lagged behind average income growth since 1980.

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Gender - The report states that increased female participation in the labour market has been a counterforce to rising inequality, but the glass ceiling remains firmly in place. Men make up 85% of the top 1% of the labour income distribution.

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Middle East - The Middle East appears to be the most unequal region in the world. Income inequality in the Middle East remains extremely high over the 1990 to 2016 period: the top 10% income share fluctuated at around 60 to 66% of total income.

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Oil - The report states that in the Middle East, inequalities are largely due to the geography of oil ownership and the transformation of oil revenues into permanent financial endowments.

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Brazil - In Brazil, the legacy of racial inequality continues to play an important role together with huge regional inequalities.

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South Africa - Extreme inequality in South Africa is explained as being intimately related to the legacy of the apartheid system.

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