The World Inequality Report 2026, edited by Lucas Chancel, Ricardo Gómez-Carrera, Rowaida Moshrif, and Thomas Piketty is now available at wir2026.wid.world.
Prefaced by Jayati Ghosh and Joseph Stiglitz, the report explores the new dimensions of inequality that define the 21st century: climate, gender inequalities, unequal access to human capital, asymmetries in the global financial system, and territorial divides that are reshaping democracies.
In eight chapters, the report offers a toolbox for understanding today’s inequality dynamics:
A historical and multidimensional analysis of inequalities based on the most recent data collected by more than 200 researchers affiliated with the World Inequality Database- Forty country sheets to explore and compare key indicators across countries and regions
- Context and insight into the proposals feeding public debate, such as a minimum wealth tax or the creation of an independent panel on inequalities—an idea already put forward in the Stiglitz report commissioned by the South African G20 presidency.
The Executive Summary is available in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish.
NEW FINDINGS
- Today’s inequality of opportunity fuels tomorrow’s inequality of outcomes. Average education spending per child in Sub-Saharan Africa stands at only €200 (PPP), compared with €7,400 in Europe and €9,000 in North America and Oceania—a gap over 1 to 40, approximately three times as much as the gap in per capita GDP. Such disparities shape life chances across generations, entrenching a geography of opportunity that exacerbates and perpetuates global wealth hierarchies.
- Wealth has reached historic highs but remains very unevenly distributed. The top 0.001%—fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires—owns three times more wealth than the entire bottom half of humanity combined. Within almost every region, the top 1% alone hold more wealth than the bottom 90% combined.
- The global financial system is rigged in favour of rich countries. At the global level, around 1% of the global GDP flows each year from poorer to richer countries through net income transfers associated with persistent excess yields and lower interest payments on rich-country liabilities, nearly three times the amount of global development aid.
- The gender pay gap persists across all regions and is larger when unpaid labor hours are accounted for. Excluding unpaid work, women earn only 61% of what mean earn per working hour; when unpaid labor is included, this figure falls to just 32%. In every region, women work more hours than men when unpaid labor is accounted for.
- Capital ownership plays a critical role in the inequality of carbon emissions. Wealthy individuals fuel the climate crisis through their investments, even more than their consumption and lifestyles. The poorest half of the global population accounts for only 3% of carbon emissions associated with private capital ownership, while the top 10% account for 77% of emissions.
- In Western democracies, income and education political divides have disconnected: political preferences have shifted away from traditional class-based alignments to “multi-elite” party systems in which highly educated voters now lean left while high-income voters remain aligned with the right. This fragmentation has weakened broad coalitions for redistribution.
- Taxes and transfers are among the most powerful tools societies have to finance public goods and reduce inequality. Progressive taxation also strengthens social cohesion and limits the political influence of extreme wealth. Yet tax progressivity collapses at the very top: centi-millionaires and billionaires often pay proportionally less tax than most of the population. This not only undermines tax justice; it deprives societies of the resources needed for education, healthcare, and climate action.
QUOTES
Ricardo Gómez-Carrera, Lead author of the report, said:
“Inequality is silent until it becomes scandalous. This report gives voice to inequality — and to the billions of people whose opportunities are frustrated by today’s unequal social and economic structures.”
Thomas Piketty, Co-Director of the World Inequality Lab, noted:
“The World Inequality Report 2026 comes at a challenging political time, but it is more essential than ever. Only by continuing the historic movement toward equality will we be able to address the social and climate challenges of the coming decades.”
Rowaida Moshrif, Co-Director of the World Inequality Lab, stressed:
“The World Inequality Report 2026 shows that inequality is not inevitable, it is shaped by choices, institutions, and power. In a world marked by economic, gender, and climate inequalities, it offers a framework for understanding these interconnections and a call to act: to rebuild solidarity, renew trust in democracy, and share prosperity more fairly across societies.”
Lucas Chancel, Co-Director of the World Inequality Lab, explained:
“Extreme inequalities are unsustainable — for our societies and for our ecosystems. Based on four years of work by over 200 researchers on every continent, this report offers a toolbox to inform public debate, to grasp how economic, social and ecological inequalities evolve and intersect — and to drive action.”
Gabriel Zucman, Scientific Co-Director of the World Inequality Lab, added:
The World Inequality Report 2026 is an outstanding achievement: the definitive resource to monitor the evolution of inequality globally, in all its dimensions. It is a true global public good and a vital input for the public conversation throughout the world. We should all be immensely thankful to its authors who are doing such a service by disseminating this knowledge, for the benefit of all.”
Emmanuel Saez, Scientific Co-Director of the World Inequality Lab, added:
“At a time of growing inequality around the world, the World Inequality Report 2026 provides an invaluable source of information to help us understand the latest developments and put them in historical perspective. The report provides a rich set of measures, including not only income and wealth, but also gender disparities, regional inequality, and political cleavages within countries. All these facets of inequality are connected and will shape the evolution of our societies. Read the report to understand the facts and participate in the policy debate of what to do about it.”
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel prize laureate and lead member of the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality, said:
“History, experiences across countries, and theory all show that today’s extreme inequality is not inevitable. Progressive taxation, strong social investment, fair labor standards, and democratic institutions have narrowed gaps in the past—and can do so again. The World Inequality Report provides the empirical foundation and intellectual framework for what can be done.”
Jayati Ghosh, member of the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality, said:
“We live in a system where resources extracted from labor and nature in low-income countries continue to sustain the prosperity and the unsustainable lifestyle of people in high-income economies and rich elites across countries. These patterns are not accidents of markets. They reflect the legacy of history and the functioning of institutions, regulations and policies—all of which are related to unequal power relations that have yet to be rebalanced.”
Joseph E. Stiglitz and Jayati Ghosh, stressed :
“An International Panel on Inequality is needed to track inequality worldwide, consider the drivers of inequality and provide objective, evidence-based recommendations for policymakers. The World Inequality Lab is an important example of such work and the way forward.”
MEDIA CONTACT
Alice Fauvel, Communications Manager, World Inequality Lab, alice.fauvel[at]psemail.eu, +33(0)763918168.:
