Strong $A, mining boom lift Aust wealth

20 Oct 2011, 8:01 am   -   Source: AAP
3 Comments
Share This
+ Comment
3
Australia's wealth is far more evenly spread than the US. (AP)

Australia's wealth is far more evenly spread than the US. (AP)

The spread of wealth in Australia is much more even than other countries, a survey says.

RELATED

Wealth is being much more evenly spread in Australia than other countries, and particularly the US, a report from banking giant Credit Suisse says.

The Credit Suisse global wealth report also found that the average net worth of adults in Australia was the highest in the world, because of the rise in the Australian dollar and commodity boom.

Credit Suisse co-head of equities research in Australia Adnan Kucukalic said a progressive tax system and labour market protections in this country had helped support a greater spread of wealth compared with the US.

"We shouldn't forget that we are looking at Australia where almost everything is going as well as it could be and in America everything is going as badly as it could be," Mr Kucukalic told reporters in Sydney on Wednesday.

The report showed that the median value of wealth - total assets minus debts - in Australia was $US221,704 per adult, while the average for all adults was $US396,745, 79 per cent more than the median.

By comparison, the median value for wealth in the US was $52,752, and the average was $US248,395, almost five times the median.

Australia's proportionately bigger median compared with the average shows a more even spread of wealth than the US.

A soaring Australian dollar, coupled with income gains due to the mining boom and the world's appetite for iron ore and coal, was behind a strong rise in Australia's net worth over the 18 months to June 2011.

The report showed Australia's median net worth of $US221,704 was the highest in the world.

Moreover, the report found the proportion of Australians with net worth above $US100,000 was, at 70.5 per cent, the highest of any country and about eight times the world average.

"These numbers are very good and show Australia is in a wonderful sweet spot," Mr Kucukalic said.

"Its growth is linked to China, the currency is strong, employment is good."

Credit Suisse head of private banking research in Australia David McDonald said the currency contributed more than half the rise in Australian wealth.

"Ex-the currency our wealth in constant dollars has gone up broadly in line with the rest of the world really," Mr McDonald said.

"You can't altogether ignore the currency, it is strong because the economy is doing well."

In terms of the global picture, the report said total global wealth was $US231 trillion in June 2011, up from $US203 trillion in January 2010.

There were 29.7 million millionaires around the world in June 2011 and less than one per cent of the global population owned 38.5 per cent of global household wealth, the report found.

The survey looked to measure net worth of about 4.5 billion adults in 200 countries.

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Your Comments

Clearly Credit Suisse is living in corporate la-la-land

Marcel - from Perth, 7 months ago

Is “progressive” another word for shonky? – Given the huge tax breaks multinational corporations and the wealthy receive whilst workers are being taxed to the hilt. If the liberals get hold of the labour market, it would not be protected! The unions have had to fight multinational corporation CEOs and their political cronies (the Liberal / Nationals) all the way to get the few protections the labour force enjoys and to try and extract a fair pay in relation to the corporate income.

Rubbish

Kenn - from NSW, 7 months ago

Middle class Australia is slowly vanishing.The big end of town is very rich.Politicians,media barons,corporate CEOs are doing exceedindly well.Ordinary Australians have been shafted.It is unconscionable for anyone to take home 10-15 million a year.The rot and rort should stop.

"WARNING"

Peter - from QLD, 7 months ago

WARNING:- The contents of this report is fictional. Australia seems to be doing well, it seems that employment is strong and it seem wealth is being much more evenly spread, REALITY IS Australia is not doing well, employment is unstable and wealth is not evenly spread around. Just ask the workers of this country. "FACT", politicians are doing really well, CEO's are doing really well, where getting screwed.

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.