Icon: enlarge
My house, my boat: Wealth on display at the Boot trade fair in Düsseldorf
Photo:
Bernd Thissen / DPA
Crisis?
What crisis?
Many of the people who have recently moved up into the circle of dollar millionaires despite the corona pandemic in Germany are likely to wonder.
According to a study by the Swiss bank Credit Suisse, their number grew by 58,000 in the first half of 2020 to reach 2.1 million.
In China there were even more: there, the number of millionaires rose by 365,000 from 5.8 million at the end of 2019 to mid-2020.
Overall, according to the Global Wealth Report, household wealth grew this year on a global average.
The wealth per adult had risen by 1.8 percent in Germany during the period and should increase by 3.9 percent for the year as a whole.
Although there was initially a sharp slump with the store closings from January to March, the recovery was marked, writes Credit Suisse.
At the end of June, household wealth worldwide was around 0.3 percent, or one trillion dollars, higher than at the end of 2019.
Low-income workers lose jobs first
In contrast to other wealth studies such as the Deutsche Bundesbank, which add up cash, bank deposits, securities and claims against insurance companies, Credit Suisse also takes real estate into account in its calculations.
According to Credit Suisse calculations, real assets such as real estate account for 57 percent of the gross wealth of German private households.
In recent years the prices for houses and apartments have risen significantly in many regions.
Investors also benefited from rising prices on the stock exchanges.
According to an Allianz study, private financial assets had increased by almost ten percent in 2019, but a decline was noted for the first time since the financial crisis.
Overall, Credit Suisse assumes that the income gap has widened further in many countries because workers with low incomes and insecure jobs are the most likely to have lost their jobs or income during the corona crisis.
In Germany, the wealth difference is particularly pronounced: the one percent of the richest people own 29 percent of the wealth, compared with 22 percent in France and Great Britain.
The number of people with more than $ 100,000 in assets is 40 percent - four times the global average.
Germans are hoarding $ 14.8 trillion
According to Credit Suisse, the fact that household assets were higher in June 2020 than at the end of 2019 is due, among other things, to the fact that consumption was restricted and that governments with large economic stimulus packages pumped money into the private sector - and thus also into households.
However, the prospects for a further increase in prosperity are not so rosy, among other things because governments would probably have to recoup their expenditure later through tax increases and because interest rates would rise.
According to the study, the Germans had a total fortune of 14.8 (2018: 14.5) trillion dollars at the end of 2019.
Worldwide, people's wealth increased by ten percent or $ 36.5 trillion to around $ 399.2 trillion within a year.
Icon: The mirror
apr / dpa
