{"id":4310,"date":"2026-07-27T10:10:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4310"},"modified":"2026-07-27T10:10:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:10:44","slug":"mckinsey-global-households-got-40-trillion-richer-in-2025-as-the-paper-wealth-economy-swelled-to-1-8-quadrillion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4310","title":{"rendered":"McKinsey: Global households got $40 trillion richer in 2025 as the paper wealth economy swelled to $1.8 quadrillion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is more than quadruple the value from 2000, at nominal values and market exchange rates, and a faster growth rate than GDP, \u201cposing questions about its health and stability,\u201d McKinsey drily noted, and it\u2019s not uniform across countries.<\/p>\n

Read more One-third of Seattle\u2019s downtown is empty: Here\u2019s how America\u2019s boomtown turned into one of the toughest places to find a job<\/a><\/p>\n

Household wealth per capita is growing in most countries, but largely not keeping pace with GDP, which the institute attributed to slowing real-estate values, as real estate is the largest component of household wealth in most economies. The U.S. and Australia have the highest wealth per capita and saw household wealth expand by at least 20 percentage points of GDP.<\/p>\n

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The AI-fueled paper wealth problem<\/h2>\n

The headline finding is this wealth surge was overwhelmingly a \u201cpaper\u201d phenomenon rather than genuine economic expansion. Only about 20% of the new household wealth came from real capital formation\u2014actual investment in productive assets\u2014while equities alone accounted for 57% of new wealth versus just 15% from real estate. That marks a sharp reversal from the historical 2000\u20132024 pattern, when real estate drove the majority of wealth gains.<\/p>\n

U.S. equity values reached 2.4 times corporate net assets in 2025\u2014nearly double the historical average\u2014with just over half of S&P 500 market-cap growth from 2021 through 2025 attributable to the \u201cMagnificent Seven\u201d AI-linked mega-cap stocks. The U.S. now accounts for nearly half of all corporate equity value among major economies globally, a share that has grown substantially over the past 15 years. This concentration means American corporate earnings, and specifically AI monetization, have become a linchpin for global wealth stability.<\/p>\n

While the U.S. relied on rising equity multiples, China\u2019s balance sheet growth came through debt accumulation instead. Corporate debt there reached 80% of real assets (versus a 50% global norm) and 1.7x GDP, even as declining property values dragged down Chinese household wealth. This divergence is central to McKinsey\u2019s \u201cimbalance and divergence\u201d framing: The world\u2019s two largest economies are inflating their balance sheets through fundamentally different, equally precarious mechanisms.<\/p>\n

Read more Mideast oil may soon have no way out amid \u2018everything everywhere all at once\u2019 wars, but the crisis in refined products is even worse<\/a><\/p>\n

In a final note to executives, the institute wrote a balance sheet that is so \u201cout of kilter\u201d with the underlying economy can unwind one of three ways: higher productivity, higher inflation, or asset price corrections. Balance sheets can also remain swollen and stagger on under secular-stagnation-like conditions, \u201ceffectively kicking the can down the road for potential correction.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Every single one of these scenarios is still possible for every major economy, it added.<\/p>\n

For this story,\u00a0<\/em>Fortune\u00a0journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more China\u2019s Moonshot, Z.AI, and DeepSeek are challenging U.S. AI labs\u2014and beating them on cost<\/a><\/p>\n

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That’s right, quadrillion with a “Q.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth"],"yoast_head":"\nMcKinsey: Global households got $40 trillion richer in 2025 as the paper wealth economy swelled to $1.8 quadrillion - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4310\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"McKinsey: Global households got $40 trillion richer in 2025 as the paper wealth economy swelled to $1.8 quadrillion - 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