NPR

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Darren Woods. And I'm Adrian Ma and it's indicators of the week.

And to help us cover some of our favorite numbers in the financial news is our

colleague from Planet Money, Erica Barris.

Hello, hello, let's do numbers, numbers, numbers.

Yes, we have great numbers. Today in the show, we'll take the temperature on global wealth.

We'll talk trade loopholes for Chinese steel.

And a country bucking the trend towards a shorter work week.

We'll have those indicators after the week, Adrian Ma, you are first.

My indicator comes from a company called UBS, a giant global financial services firm

based in Switzerland that every year puts out this annual report on global

wealth. And wealth is basically defined as everything from stocks and bonds to tangible

stuff like a house or a car and this year's report estimates that 43%

of the world's population have somewhere between 10 and a hundred thousand

dollars in wealth and what's interesting about this stat is that it's more than double what it was

in the year 2000.

So some of that is because people have gotten richer, some of that is obviously because of inflation, but the numbers here are definitely higher than they used to be.

Okay, so what is driving this increase in wealth beyond just like inflation?

Well, they give a number of reasons. It depends on the country, but they cite globalization,

they talk about the growth in emerging markets, they also cite rising real estate prices,

and the tech industry boom.

Huh, and what are people on the higher and lower ends of the spectrum?

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