World Inequality Report 2022

The 2022 World Inequality Report, a huge undertaking coordinated by economic and inequality experts Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, was the product of four years of research and produced an unprecedented data set on just how wealth is distributed…The data serves as a complete rebuke of the trickle-down economic theory. * Business Insider * The World Inequality Report said that 2020 saw the steepest increase in billionaires’ wealth on record. Meanwhile, 100 million people sank into extreme poverty…To help redress the imbalance, the economists call for a ‘modest progressive wealth tax on global multi-millionaires’ in order to redistribute wealth. They also call for tougher action on tax evasion. * BBC News * [The World Inequality Report] finds that the fortunes of the super-rich have grown exponentially in recent years thanks to financial assets…In 2021, 10% of the richest people in the world held more than 52% of the world’s income while the poor held only 8.5%…The observations are clear: the biggest fortunes have been enriched since the coronavirus pandemic. * Vanity Fair, France * The study’s findings add to a debate about worsening inequality during a public health crisis that’s hurt developing economies—which are short of vaccines as well as financial resources to cushion the blow—even more than advanced ones. Within the rich world too, financial and real-estate markets have soared since the depths of the slump last year, widening domestic gaps. * Bloomberg *