{"id":500785,"date":"2021-06-24T17:07:34","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T15:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=500785"},"modified":"2021-06-24T17:07:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T15:07:34","slug":"this-graph-shows-how-wealth-is-distributed-in-south-africa-and-how-much-the-1-really-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/500785\/this-graph-shows-how-wealth-is-distributed-in-south-africa-and-how-much-the-1-really-control\/","title":{"rendered":"This graph shows how wealth is distributed in South Africa – and how much the 1% really control"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global financial group Credit Suisse has published its latest Global Wealth Report for 2021, showing that wealth in the country is becoming increasingly more concentrated at the top – with the country’s richest 1% holding more of the money than before.<\/p>\n

According to the group’s Wealth Databook, South Africa’s richest 1% currently hold about 41% of the country’s total wealth – estimated in 2021 at $763 billion. This is up significantly from the 35% recorded in 2019.<\/p>\n

This elite group of around 376,000 people – based on the adult population of 37.6 million – control around $311 billion of South Africa’s total wealth. Averaged out, this is $828,000 per person (R11.8 million)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

These figures are up from 2019 when the data was last recorded by Credit Suisse, where the average one-percenter was worth $750,000 at the time. Over the same period, total wealth in South Africa declined by around $35 billion.<\/p>\n

Breaking down Credit Suisse’s data further, it’s apparent that South Africa’s wealth is highly concentrated among the super-rich. Approximately 80% of total wealth is held by 10% of the adult population – but the biggest chunk of this is held by the top 1%.<\/p>\n

This can best be explained on a per-adult basis.<\/p>\n

According to Credit Suisse, wealth per adult in South Africa overall amounted to roughly $20,300 (R289,300) at the end of 2020. However, wealth per adult in the top 1% averages $828,000;\u00a0 among the top 10%, it averages $162,000.<\/p>\n

Looking at the balance, the remaining 90% of the population controls only 20% of the country’s wealth and has a wealth per adult figure of only $4,500. This aligns with Credit Suisse’s data which records the median wealth per adult in South Africa at $4,523.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Group<\/th>\nAdult population<\/th>\nWealth share<\/th>\nWealth ($m)<\/th>\nWealth per adult<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Top 1%<\/em><\/td>\n~376 000<\/em><\/td>\n40.8%<\/em><\/td>\n$311 304<\/em><\/td>\n$827 900<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Top 5%<\/em><\/td>\n~1 880 000<\/em><\/td>\n68.5%<\/em><\/td>\n$522 655<\/em><\/td>\n$278 000<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Top 10%*<\/td>\n~3 760 000<\/td>\n79.9%<\/td>\n$609 637<\/td>\n$162 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The rest (90%)<\/td>\n~33 840 000<\/td>\n20.1%<\/td>\n$153 363<\/td>\n$4 500<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/strong><\/td>\n~37 600 000<\/strong><\/td>\n100.0%<\/strong><\/td>\n$763 000<\/strong><\/td>\n$20 300<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

* Top 10% figures include the top 5% and top 1% numbers<\/em><\/p>\n

Even as wealth becomes more concentrated at the top, South Africa as a whole is getting poorer, Credit Suisse’s data shows.<\/p>\n

Globally, the broad category of wealth that represents the middle class is the $10,000 to $100,000 range. Only 20.2% of South Africans currently fall into this category, down significantly from 32.2% in 2019.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the number of South Africans worth less than $10,000 has increased to almost 76% of the adult population, from 65% before.<\/p>\n

Rich South Africans are also dropping out of the global 10%, with the country recording some of the biggest losses here. Credit Suisse recorded a loss of around 113,000 South Africans who dropped out of the global 10%, with only 1.1 million individuals forming part of the global elite, from 1.2 million before.<\/p>\n

Among the global top 1%, there are 54,000 South Africans who qualify, up from 51,000 in 2019.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: South Africa continues to lose thousands of millionaires<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Global financial group Credit Suisse has published its latest Global Wealth Report for 2021, showing that wealth in the country is becoming increasingly more concentrated at the top – with the country’s richest 1% holding more of the money than before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":144519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[223,26],"class_list":["post-500785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-credit-suisse","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500785"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501113,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500785\/revisions\/501113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}