this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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I think it's worth noting that being counted among the "rich people" (defined by the article as the world's top 10% by income or wealth) starts at a number a lot lower than most Americans (or Westerners in general) might realize: $122,100/year measured by income, or $771,300 measured by net worth. (Source: World Inequality Report 2022, page 9.) In fact, even that second figure might be (vastly) overstated, because another paper I found claims that it only takes $138,346 net worth to be in the top 10%, and $1,146,685 gets you into the top 1%! (Source: Credit Suisse Research Institute Global Wealth Report 2022, page 22.)
In other words, a Hell of a lot of those global rich people are Americans who are deluding themselves to think they're middle-class and not part of the problem. We're not talking about just Musk and Bezos and shit; we're talking about you and me. Literally, in fact: at least according to the Credit Suisse definition, I myself am one of the rich people @z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml wants to eat!
A $122,100/year is well above the median income of any country. For the US median income is $46,625/year. So more then half of Americans are not part of the richest 10%. That is even more true for Europe, where incomes tend to be lower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
While true, $46,625 is still the top 32%. Which suggests that the average American will still have to make some lifestyle cuts. Even though they're already exploited hard by their ruling class.
$30k, the entry level salary for US restaurant workers, is the 50% mark. So basically, every full-time working US adult is in the top 50% richest globally by income. Their exorbitant medical and student debts make that not feel anything like how being rich is portrayed, even if they are technically richer when measured by income alone.
You know things are fucked when most of the richest people in the world are struggling to put a roof over their head and pay for essentials.
It's worth noting that Americans also must spend that income in a similarly-inflated market, so it doesn't much matter what their salary would be worth in, say, Uganda. I think any such comparison of global wealth runs into these sorts of issues.
Someone earning in the global top 10% may not be able to afford a house locally. Someone earning in the top 30% may not be able to afford rent and food at the same time in their locale. It makes the percentile meaningless.
Yep, this is after all adjustments using the United Nations SNA 2008. It's not perfect, but it's the closest we have for accounting for those differences.