Wealthy people do have a way of grabbing the attention of the rest of the world. A lot of people are always wondering who these people are and most importantly, where did they get all that money? The number of wealthy people in the world is going up actually. Recent reports show that wealthy people have increased by 2% globally over the last year alone. So far, there are about 23 million high net worth individuals around the world all of whom have a combined net worth of $62 trillion.
Most of these people are self-made and 40% are in the United States. But even among the rich, there are categories of wealth. A few are ultra-richer than the others. According to analysts who track wealth around the world, a high net individual would be someone with a combined asset value of between $1 million and $30 million. Out of the 23 million people considered wealthy, 90% of them are high net worth individuals with between $1 million and $30 million in assets. But, there’s that small 10% that represents the ultra-rich. These are basically individuals with a combined asset value of more than $30 million.
So, what do you do with all this money? One thing that most people don’t know is that most wealthy people around the world give a huge chunk of their money away. Philanthropic giving still remains the number one pursuit for the ultra-rich. Almost 57% of all the ultra-rich give most of their money to charity. Despite this, analysts say that as a proportion of net worth, the ultra-rich give far less compared to people with limited means. The most popular charitable courses funded by the ultra-rich cut across various sectors. These sectors include education, arts and culture, social services, and health.
After giving money to charity, the wealthy are secondly interested in finance. This is followed by sports and the outdoors. It also goes without saying though that golf is the most popular sport among the rich. Football is a close second with skiing, basketball, and baseball filling up the remaining top places. Unlike most misconceptions out there, a majority of the ultra-wealthy people in the world doesn’t spend their money on politics. In fact, this was at the bottom of the top twenty priorities.
But who are these wealthy people? Well, most are men to start with. Women account for only 16% of the high net worth individuals. They also make up just 14% of the ultra-high net worth people. 40% of these people are in the US, 25% are in Europe, while another 25% are located in Asia. The remaining 10% are located in other parts of the world.
In terms of cities, New York City has the highest number of high net individuals although there was a drop in 2018. Tokyo comes in second. Hong Kong, on the other hand, has the highest number of ultra-high net worth individuals compared to any other city in the world. Contrary to many beliefs out there, most of these wealthy people didn’t inherit their wealth, they actually earned it.
