The world’s wealthiest individuals and families are experiencing a surge in fortunes that is redefining the global economic landscape, according to a slew of new reports published in early October 2025. While the United States’ richest citizens continue to amass record-breaking sums, India’s elite are demonstrating both resilience and volatility amid shifting markets. At the same time, new research has reignited debate over whether the ultra-wealthy are paying their fair share in taxes, revealing widening disparities not just in wealth, but in the very structure of modern economies.
In the United States, the numbers are staggering. The top 10% of Americans—those with a net worth exceeding $2 million—saw their combined wealth soar to a record $113 trillion in the second quarter of 2025, up from $108 trillion just three months earlier, according to data from the Federal Reserve reported by CNBC. This $5 trillion quarterly gain caps a remarkable period: since 2020, the wealthiest 10% have added more than $40 trillion to their coffers. The top 1%, meanwhile, now control a record $52 trillion, having seen their wealth jump by $4 trillion, or 7%, in just the past year. The very apex—the top 0.1%, with net worths above $46 million—have nearly doubled their fortunes since the pandemic, holding over $23 trillion.
Yet, while all wealth segments saw gains over the past year, the pace has been far faster at the top. The bottom half of Americans enjoyed a 6% increase in net worth, but the scale pales in comparison to the windfalls at the upper echelons. The share of total household wealth held by the top 1% ticked up to 29% in the second quarter of 2025, compared with 28% at the start of the millennium. The top 10% now command 67% of all household wealth, leaving the remaining 90% with just a third.
What’s fueling these record highs? The stock market, above all else. The value of corporate equities and mutual fund shares held by the top 10% ballooned from $39 trillion to over $44 trillion in the past year alone. This group now owns more than 87% of all such assets, underscoring how market rallies disproportionately benefit those already at the top.
It’s not just paper wealth, either. The number of ultra-high-net-worth Americans—those worth $30 million or more—grew by 6.5% in the first half of 2025, following an extraordinary 21% surge in 2024, according to Altrata. There are now 208,090 Americans in this exclusive club, accounting for a whopping 41% of the world’s ultra-wealthy.
This concentration of wealth is echoing across the consumer economy. According to Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics, consumers in the top 10% accounted for 49.2% of all consumer spending in the second quarter of 2025—the highest share since records began in 1989. Zandi warns that this “K-shaped economy” is increasingly dependent on the spending habits of the ultra-wealthy. “The economy is being powered in big part by the spending of the extraordinarily well-to-do, who are cheered by the surging value of their stock portfolios,” he told CNBC. However, he cautioned, “If the richly (over) valued stock market were to stumble, for whatever reason, and the well-to-do see more red on their stock tickers than green, they will quickly turn more cautious in their spending, posing a serious threat to the already fragile economy.”
But as fortunes at the top swell, so too does scrutiny of how much the wealthiest contribute in taxes. A new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), published through October 3, 2025, analyzed the tax records of the 400 richest Americans. The findings, as reported by Investopedia, are striking: from 2018 through 2020, the richest 400 paid an effective tax rate of just 23.8%. The top 100 paid even less, at 22%. This is significantly lower than the average effective tax rate for the general U.S. population, which stands at 30%. High earners who derive most of their income from wages, rather than investments, paid a tax rate of 45%.
Why the disparity? The ultra-wealthy often report less taxable income and earn more through investments, which are taxed at lower rates than regular income. Corporate taxes make up about 9% of the 23.8% effective rate paid by the wealthiest, reflecting their substantial ownership in major companies. The NBER authors note, “Individual income taxes alone are insufficient for measuring the contribution of high-net-worth individuals to government revenues.”
This gap widened sharply after the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), signed into law during the first Trump administration. Before the TCJA, from 2010 to 2017, the richest 400 Americans paid an effective tax rate of 30%, roughly on par with the national average. The TCJA lowered corporate tax rates and shifted individual tax brackets, causing the effective tax rate for the ultra-wealthy to drop substantially. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), passed in summer 2025, extended these tax cuts, suggesting that low effective tax rates for the richest Americans are likely to persist for years.
The NBER study also highlights the growing economic clout of the richest 400, who now own 4.1% of the nation’s wealth—up from 0.9% in 1982—and whose combined fortunes equal about 20% of America’s gross domestic product, compared to just 2% four decades ago. Federal Reserve data further show that the share of national wealth held by the top 0.1% has increased by more than 60% over the same period.
The U.S. is not alone in this trend. Across the globe, India’s richest are also making headlines for both their resilience and the volatility of their fortunes. The newly released M3M Hurun India Rich List 2025, as reported by Outlook Business, places Mukesh Ambani and his family at the top with a net worth of ₹9,55,410 crore, despite a 6% drop. Gautam Adani and his family maintain second place at ₹8,14,720 crore, though their wealth fell by a staggering 30%. Roshni Nadar Malhotra and her family became India’s richest woman with ₹2,84,120 crore, marking a milestone for female leadership in Indian business.
The list also spotlights the dynamic nature of Indian wealth: Niraj Bajaj and family saw their net worth surge by 43%, while others like Cyrus Poonawalla, Dilip Shanghvi, and Gopichand Hinduja experienced declines. Sectors such as energy, technology, pharmaceuticals, and retail remain at the heart of these fortunes, reflecting both adaptability and the impact of global and domestic headwinds.
As the world’s richest continue to shape economies and societies, the debate over wealth concentration and tax fairness shows no sign of abating. The numbers may dazzle, but they also raise urgent questions about economic resilience, social equity, and the sustainability of a system increasingly reliant on the fortunes of a select few.