GlobalEconomicSince 1980Curatedmedium confidence

Economic Inequality

Wealth concentration is at levels that distort politics as well as economies.

Severity score

50.0

Severe · default weighting

Trajectory

Worsening

What this is

The wealthiest one percent hold a large and growing share of global wealth, while real wages for much of the world have stagnated. Inequality is linked to worse health outcomes, lower social mobility and political instability independent of absolute income levels.

Score breakdown

Loss of life

26

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

86

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

70

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

6

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

58

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.