GoKawiilLuxury cars are an indulgence often out of reach for all but very wealthy people.Credit: Mike Kemp/In PIctures/Getty
Between 2000 and 2024, the richest 1% of people captured 41% of all new wealth. By contrast, just 1% was captured by the poorest 50%. These and other data on both income and wealth inequality were outlined in a commentary article published in Nature last week (J. E. Stiglitz et al. Nature 657, 345–348; 2026)
Why we need an International Panel on Inequality
Although income inequality has been falling, rising wealth inequality is a problem because it slows social mobility, feeds political polarization and erodes trust in institutions, say the article’s authors, who include Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prizewinning economist at Columbia University in New York, and Winnie Byanyima, the head of the United Nations’ agency to combat AIDS, in Geneva, Switzerland.
It’s concerning that so much is known about the causes and damaging consequences of severe inequality but that this knowledge has failed to prompt meaningful action from politicians. The authors’ solution is for researchers to step up and be heard: they propose a body called the International Panel on Inequality (IPI). This would involve a group of around 40 specialists reviewing the research on inequality and putting the knowledge before policymakers.
The proposal for the panel has the backing of the UN and the African Union — along with more than 700 economists and other scholars of inequality. The governments of South Africa, Brazil, Spain and Norway are providing support.
The authors are calling for more governments to join them, and Nature urges them to do so, including by providing financial backing. We also encourage the IPI’s founding team to establish a transparent application process for participating on the panel. The founders’ ambition is for a diversity of voices to be represented. They must now establish an open process to fulfil this promise.
Tried and tested
The IPI team plans to examine government policies that are designed to lower inequality, including those that have worked and those that haven’t, and understand and report on the reasons behind the outcomes. Data on income and wealth are typically collected using household surveys. But two groups in society tend to have low response rates to surveys — the wealthiest and the poorest.
These groups are, arguably, among the most important to inequality research. Various researchers are testing collection methods other than surveys, such as administrative data from records of taxes and welfare benefits. Such data might yield more accurate information, but the work is scattered. A review of the evidence by one body would be a valuable endeavour.
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