Last year was a financially disheartening one for many Americans, but not all. According to a new report, the number of millionaires in the world increased at a brisk pace in 2021, aided by rebounds in economic sectors like the stock and housing markets.

                By                    David Nadelle

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According to Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2022, the economy helped the rich get richer and allowed 2021 to set a record for household wealth.

“By the end of 2021, global wealth totaled an estimated $463.6 trillion, which is an increase of 9.8% versus 2020 and far above the average annual +6.6% recorded since the beginning of the century,” the report stated.

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Worldwide, the report found that there were 62.5 million millionaires at the end of 2021. That is 5.2 million more — and a whopping 2.5 million more Americans — than the year before, per CNN.

So, global wealth is up and American wealth is way up. According to the report, the upsurge in American millionaires “is the largest increase in millionaire numbers recorded for any country in any year this century.”

Per Credit Suisse, the United States is “at the top of the wealth pyramid,” having over 140,000 individuals with an ultra-high net worth of over $50 million USD. China is ranked second, with 32,710 individuals achieving that same level of wealth.

Buoyed by strong later-pandemic economic activity in their respective countries, the world’s two biggest economies — the U.S. and China — had the biggest household wealth gains as well, followed by Canada, India and Australia.

Wealth May Have Increased, But Poverty Remains a Global Reality

Conversely, as the report noted, while the top 1% wealth share increased for a second year in a row, global inequality worsened.

As CNN stated, global poverty levels took a drastic turn during the pandemic. In 2020 the number of the world’s poorest people increased for the first time in two decades, according to World Bank stats.

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The Credit Suisse Research Institute found that, despite overall poverty decreasing slightly in 2021, millions more people could be living in deep poverty “due to the lingering effects of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and rising inflation.”