Top 10% hold half of Australia’s wealth

The Roy Morgan Wealth Report 2019 has been released, which shows that owner-occupied housing accounts for half of Australia’s personal assets. The Report also shows that the wealthiest 10% of Australians hold nearly half of the nation’s wealth:

Key Findings:

Australians’ per capita gross wealth increased in real terms between 2007 (i.e. pre-GFC) and June 2019 by 20.9%, from $306,100 to $370,200.

However, the strong growth generally seen over this period has stagnated in the last six months. In fact, we have begun to see a decline, with per capita gross wealth dropping by around $5,000 (1.4%) from the first to the second quarter of 2019.

Owner occupied homes currently account for $4,944 billion, or around half (50.1%), of Australians’ personal asset value.

The growth in Net Wealth is possible because, although debt is growing, it’s growing more slowly than the growth in assets. In real terms, from 2007 to 2019 Australians’ per capita debt increased by 13.7% while assets grew by 20.9%.

The share of Net Wealth held by women is growing, but there is still a gender gap. In 2007, the Net Wealth held by women was 81.9% of that held by men. By June 2019, this had risen to 91.4%.

Globally, the richest 10% of the population hold 47% of the wealth; that figure is matched almost perfectly in Australia, with the wealthiest 10% of the population holding 47.3% of Net Wealth. Meanwhile the bottom five deciles, a full 50% of our population, have just 3.6% of Net Wealth. And inequality has increased, rather than decreased, between 2007 and 2019.

You can see from the next chart that wealth inequality has worsened since the GFC:

The top 10% now hold 47% of net wealth in Australia, an increase of 0.5%.

The bottom half of the population now holds just 3.6% of the country’s net wealth, a decrease of 0.9%.