section_path: Economy/Wealth
section_name: Wealth
paragraph_text: Wealth
  
  China accounted for 17.9% of the world's total wealth in 2021, second highest in the world after the U.S. China brought more people out of extreme poverty than any other country in history —between 1978 and 2018, China reduced extreme poverty by 800 million. From 1990 to 2018, the proportion of the Chinese population living with an income of less than $1.90 per day (2011 PPP) decreased from 66.3% to 0.3%, the share living with an income of less than $3.20 per day from 90.0% to 2.9%, and the share living with an income of less than $5.50 per day decreased from 98.3% to 17.0%.
  
  From 1978 to 2018, the average standard of living multiplied by a factor of twenty-six. Wages in China have grown significantly in the last 40 years—real (inflation-adjusted) wages grew seven-fold from 1978 to 2007. Per capita incomes have also risen significantly – when the PRC was founded in 1949, per capita income in China was one-fifth of the world average; per capita incomes now equal the world average itself. China's development is highly uneven. Its major cities and coastal areas are far more prosperous compared to rural and interior regions. It has a high level of economic inequality, which has increased quickly after the economic reforms, though has decreased significantly in the 2010s. In 2020, China's Gini coefficient was 0.371, according to the World Bank.
  
  As of March 2024, China was second in the world, after the U.S., in total number of billionaires and total number of millionaires, with 473 Chinese billionaires and 6.2 million millionaires. In 2019, China overtook the U.S. as the home to the highest number of people who have a net personal wealth of at least $110,000, according to the global wealth report by Credit Suisse. China had 85 female billionaires as of January 2021, two-thirds of the global total. China has had the world's largest middle-class population since 2015; the middle-class grew to 500 million by 2024.