Even despite the pandemic and its impact on the national economy and household incomes, Portugal has won millionaires over the past year. According to the latest World Wealth Reportreferring to 2020 – a year marked mostly by Covid-19 -, There are 136,430 millionaires in Portugal., 19,430 more than in the 2019 report…
In fact, the number of millionaires – people with fortunes exceeding one million dollars (about 840 thousand euros) – in Portugal has been growing in bank accounts since 2015, when 51,000 people were counted with more than a million wealth. dollars. That year there was a decrease compared to 2014 (76,000), possibly due to the effects of the financial crisis. In a report published in October 2019, with data up to the middle of this year, Credit Suisse identified 117,000 millionaires in the country, which rose to 136,430 in 2020. The bank has just started publishing data for Portugal on the number of millionaires since 2014.
Disaggregated data from Credit Suisse show that in 2020 128,772 people with a condition between million and five million dollars, 5.505 as between five and ten million, 2,056 with wealth between 10 out of 50 million… In the richest group they 72 as between 50 and 100 million e 24 between 100 and 500 million… A person have a fortune more than $ 500 million…
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This estimate differs from other rankings such as Forbes (which counted at least ten Portuguese with fortunes of over € 500 million in 2019). Credit Suisse takes Forbes’ calculations into account because, “although they can be criticized in some respects,” they apply “consistent practices across countries.” But there are a few more factors that need to be weighed in bank accounts.
Credit Suisse notes that there are other reports with numbers below those the bank has published and explains the discrepancy: it says that many ratings only take into account “investment assets” (which include bank balances, certificates of deposit, mutual funds, stocks and bonds), which in turn “do not include owner-occupied homes.” Thus, the bank weighs both financial and non-financial assets as well as debt.
Estimates are also based on data from national household income statistics agencies. “The goal is to provide comprehensive coverage of assets that people would recognize as part of their personal wealth: housing, land, savings, investments, etc.,” Including pension funds.
According to the report, in percentage terms, the group grew the most from 5 to 10 million (an increase of 19%, more than 885), but in absolute terms, this was the range from one million to five million, which received the richest (there were plus 18,075, an increase of 16%).
This growth was enough to compensate for the gap in the richest groups (among the richest). For example, in 2019 there were two people with fortunes of over 500 million; by 2020, that number had halved. Another example: in states of 100 to 500 million, the number of millionaires fell by 14%, from 28 in 2019 to 24 in 2020.
These figures are in stark contrast to poverty, which has increased in Portugal over the past year. One study Information released on Tuesday by the Catholic University shows that more than 400,000 people have fallen below the poverty line due to the pandemic crisis, which has exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor in Portugal.
In addition, 8.3 million Portuguese adults each have an average net worth of $ 142,537, up from $ 131,088 recorded in 2019. This is almost three times more than at the beginning of the millennium (52,357). In terms of debt, data from Credit Suisse show that there is an average of $ 20,389 for every Portuguese adult.
According to Credit Suisse, there are over five million millionaires worldwide, with a total of 56.1 million.
The numbers also allow us to see how much of an inequality Portugal remains. In 2020, a limited portion of the richest 1% owned 20.1% of the country’s wealth, one tenth more than in 2019. The richest 10%, in turn, concentrate more than half of the wealth – 56.2%. At the other end of the scale, half of the population has only 6.5%, and that number is declining: in 2019, before the pandemic, the figure was 7.2%.
Globally, the data is even more worrisome: “We estimate that 50% of the world’s poorest wealth together account for less than 1% of global wealth at the end of 2020. In contrast, the richest decile (richest 10%) has 82% of the world’s wealth, while only the highest percentile (richest 1%) has nearly half (45%) of all assets, ”writes Credit Suisse.
