China's middle class overtakes US as the world's largest

[Bavaria]

The US middle class, long considered a measure of prosperity, has for the first time been overtaken by China. A hundred and nine million people now make up China's middle class compared to 92 million in the US, says the 2015 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report.

While the middle class grew at a slower pace than wealth at the top end, the report forecasts Asia will see the greatest expansion.

"The middle class will continue to expand in emerging economies overall, with a lion's share of that growth to occur in Asia," said Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam in the report.

"As a result, we will see changing consumption patterns as well as societal changes as, historically, the middle class has acted as an agent of stability and prosperity," he added.

Credit Suisse defines the middle class in terms of a wealth band rather than an income range, in order to be more mobile to a temporary drawback such as a spell of unemployment.

While Europe and the US account for the majority of global wealth, CEO Thiam says "the growth of wealth in emerging markets has been most impressive, including a five-fold rise in China since the beginning of the century."

Accounting for a fifth of the world's population, China holds nearly 10 percent of global wealth, according to the report.

Source: RT

 

[Bavaria]

[h=1]China's middle class has overtaken the US's to become the world's largest[/h] We're number one. (Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
[h=5]Share[/h]
[h=5]Written by[/h] Zheping Huang
[h=5]Obsession[/h] China's Transition
October 14, 2015

China has crossed another economic threshold. The country's middle class reached 109 million this year, and overtook the US's for the first time ever, according to a Credit Suisse report released Oct. 13.
China's middle class is growing much faster than the US's. Since 2000, China added 43.4 million middle class adults, while the US added just 22 million, the report said (pdf, pg. 35).
Globally, 664 million adults, or 14% of the adult population, belong to the middle class in 2015, Credit Suisse said. That's up from 524 million in 2000. Middle class wealth grew at a slower pace than wealth at the top end of the economic spectrum this year, the bank said, and grew faster in Asia than in Europe or North America.
"The middle class will continue to expand in emerging economies overall, with a lion's share of that growth to occur in Asia," Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam said in a statement with the report. "As a result, we will see changing consumption patterns as well as societal changes as, historically, the middle class has acted as an agent of stability and prosperity," he added.
Middle class in the report is defined "in terms of a wealth band rather than an income range" and is benchmarked against the US, because the US traditionally had the largest middle class in the world. The lower level of the band is defined as having wealth "double the annual medium income," or $50,000 in the US at mid-2015 prices. The upper level is defined ten times that amount, or "the amount of capital a person close to retirement age needs to purchase an annuity paying the median wage for the remainder of their life."

China's middle class has overtaken the US's to become the world's largest - Quartz

 

[Bavaria]

[h=1]China's Middle Class Is Now Bigger Than America's[/h] 44 49
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By Joshua Keating

Chinese mothers shop with their children at a furniture store in Beijing on Jan. 19, 2015. Photo by Goh Chai-hin/AFP/Getty Images


Credit Suisse's new Global Wealth Report is getting a lot of attention for the finding that China's middle class is now bigger than America's. "China now has the largest number of middle-class adults by a wide margin-109 million compared to 92 million in the United States," the report states. There are 664 million middle-class adults worldwide, which is about 14 percent of the total population, with 2 percent above middle class and a lot of people living in poverty.

This is a legitimately impressive development, but it's also worth keeping in perspective. Only 11.3 percent of China is middle class or above, compared with 50 percent in the United States. Eighty-two million Chinese, more than a quarter of the total U.S. population, still live on less than $1 per day.

Also, as I discussed in an article last year, the "global middle class" is often defined broadly, in ways that overstate its size and prosperity. Many widely cited development reports peg it at incomes of above $2 or $4 dollars per day, still not very economically secure even by the standards of developing countries.

Credit Suisse's report defines "middle class" differently depending on the country, which is reasonable as goods and services are cheaper in poorer countries. The middle-class Chinese identified in the report have at least US$28,000 in total wealth.

The emergence of the Chinese middle class is probably less interesting in terms of what it tells us about the country's welfare relative to the United States than about the future of its own politics. With economic growth slowing and population growth plateauing, the Communist Party has promised to reorient the country's economy away from manufacturing goods for export toward providing services to this growing population of upwardly mobile consumers. But the ham-handed response to China's recent economic jitters has cast some doubt as to whether it will be able to pull this off. If things don't get back on track, these 109 million people may start to get antsy.

China’s middle class is now bigger than America’s.

 

[Chief]

What is the proportion of the middle class in comparison with the population, for these two countries?

 

[henry kilenga]

hatarious

 

[Bavaria]

What is the proportion of the middle class in comparison with the population, for these two countries?

That's the problem.
Even the poor people between the two countries are not proportional.

 

[PakiJinja]

Labda kama wana maanisha kuwa ongezeko la watu in percentages kuingia katika level hiyo zinaonyesha China imekuwa nao wengi ukilinganisha na USA. Utafiti huo inawezekana umesahau kuwa USA has already been there muda mrefu sana, na kwa kutozingatia hilo kunaufanya ulinganifu huo kuwa irrelevant.

 

[ishiveti]

mmhh
how about tanzania
this could have been amoung the campaign agenda

 

[Iconoclastes]

Yani out of the 1.2bn pipo in China, only some few 100mn are in the middle income group? The disparity there is still pretty massive.
I used to believe it is quite much higher than that, with all these talks about the spectacular economic growth there.

 

[HIMARS]

Ni ujinga kushindanisha watu 1.3bil na watu 320mil yaani China imemzidi Marekani watu Bilioni moja na zaidi afu unailinganisha nayo

 

[RRONDO]

Ni ujinga kushindanisha watu 1.3bil na watu 320mil yaani China imemzidi Marekani watu Bilioni moja na zaidi afu unailinganisha nayo

Watu bil 1.3 middle class 109m.....Watu 320m middle class 92m......US more than 25% ni middle class china less than 10% ndio middle class