GoKawiilIncreasing inequality demands action. The richest 10% of adults globally receives more than half (53%) of the world’s income, whereas the poorest half receives 8%. Wealth is even more concentrated, with the richest 10% owning around three-quarters of global wealth while the poorest half owns just 2%1. Almost two-thirds of people live in countries where inequality is rising2.
The consequences are well established. A growing body of research links higher income inequality to lower social mobility, poorer health outcomes and slower economic growth. Unequal access to education, health care, housing and finance shapes the opportunities that direct people’s lives.
Why are rich people so pessimistic? What the numbers say
Yet, all this knowledge has not produced a policy response. One reason is political: inequalities create powerful beneficiaries. Another is practical: a gap between science and policy remains to be filled. Evidence on inequality is dispersed across disciplines and institutions. Research on policy effectiveness — showing what has worked, in which contexts and through which mechanisms — is insufficiently synthesized and often inaccessible.
What’s needed is an independent scientific body mirroring the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This would periodically and systematically assess evidence on the scale, nature, drivers and consequences of inequality. It would also evaluate evidence on policies and synthesize the conclusions from the successes and failures of different countries.
In 2025, we were asked by President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa to participate in the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality (chaired by J.E.S.). We presented a report3 to the G20 countries, in which our main recommendation was for their governments to establish an International Panel on Inequality (IPI).
Since then, a founding committee, of which we are also members, has begun to develop the proposal under the leadership of South Africa, Brazil, Spain and Norway. United Nations secretary-general António Guterres has endorsed the initiative, the African Union unanimously supports it and so do more than 600 economists and inequality experts. Here we outline that case.
Unequal opportunities
Researchers agree that the level of inequality is high globally, that wealth inequality is greater than income inequality and that both forms are getting worse worldwide. Of the US$280 trillion of new wealth created globally between 2000 and 2024, the top 1% gleaned 41% while the bottom 50% got less than 1%3.
Inequality can be measured in relative or absolute terms. Relative measures, expressed as a proportion of the total, are often represented using the Gini coefficient, on a scale from 0 to 1. If everyone earns the same income or has the same wealth, the score is 0; if one person gets everything, the score is 1. The World Bank defines high income inequality as anything more than 0.4.
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