You Are 'The 1%'

You are privileged. Even if it doesn't feel that way.

If you’re reading this, your quality of life is probably better than 99% of humans who have ever walked this planet.

“LOL. No way. Things are worse than ever!”

Are they really, though? Let’s talk about it.

Currently, there are ~8.2 billion people on Earth.

In 2025, the estimated average income per capita is ~$6,750 USD per year.

Considering only working adults, the average global income is somewhere between $10,000-15,000 annually.

Averages can be massively skewed by a small percentage of people with enormous incomes however, so let’s consider the median to get a clearer picture.

The nominal median global income in 2025 is between $1,000-1,500 USD per year. 50% of people earn more than that and 50% earn less.

I know what you’re thinking. Cost of living varies wildly from country to country. You’re right.

So, with that in mind, adjusting for purchasing power parity (PPP), the median global income is estimated to be $2,000–$3,000 USD per year. That’s based on data from the World Inequality Database.

What does this mean in simple terms?

It means that 50% of the world’s population has an effective income below $3,000 per year.

Income is not the only measure of prosperity but I think it’s fair to use as a general indication of living standards.

For comparison, the median annual income for individuals in the USA is $62,000 based on the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

This is roughly 60x higher nominally than the worldwide median and 20x higher in terms of real purchasing power.

If you live in the UK, Canada, Australia, Western Europe, or any other economically developed countries (the vast majority of my readers do), then the order of magnitude will be similar, even if the numbers are a little bit lower or higher.

We are just talking about medians and averages here. If you are earning a ‘high income’, you could easily be 100x or 500x better off than the global norm, in terms of pure spending power.

Let’s take this further.

Consider that the past 85 years have been the most prosperous in human history.

The Population Reference Bureau estimates that around 100 billion people have ever existed. I don’t know if that’s true, but we’ll go with it.

If you know the most basic details about human history, then you’ll know that prior to the last few decades, basic human survival was much harder than it is now.

War, famine, disease, poor sanitation, rudimentary healthcare… this was the norm.

Forget about lack of access to the internet or modern technology. Most people didn’t even have electricity or running water. That means no central heating and certainly, no air conditioning. This remains true right now for most of the world’s population.

Let’s talk about the USA again. If we rewind 200 years ago to 1825, the life expectancy at birth in this ‘prosperous’ nation was ∼40 years old. The figure was similar in England.

If we go back just 100 years ago to 1925, the life expectancy at birth in the USA was around 60 for White Americans and only 46 for Black Americans. If you were born in England in 1925, you could expect to live to 58 on average.

These numbers are brutal and partly due to high infant mortality rates. Please keep in mind that this is merely 100 years ago… not 1,000 or 10,000.

The goal of this post is not to inundate you with facts and figures. I want to highlight just how good we have it by comparison.

#Lucky #Blessed #Fortunate