Australia – The wealthy country

Australia is well-known as the “lucky country.” Now we can also add the title – the “wealthy country.”

With the resource boom of the last decade, a strong currency and not having experienced the economic and housing turbulence that has rocked countries like the United States of America and many parts of Europe, Australia has been catapulted to the top ranks in terms of median wealth, at around US$222,000 according to a recent Credit Suisse research report.

Our love for real estate was a noticeable but somewhat expected large composition of this wealth. Having a dominant middle class, we were also not surprised to read that very few Australians had net worth less than US$1,000, compared to the rest of the world.

Despite having only 0.4% of the world’s adult population, we believe what really sets us apart is that with 1,861,000 people in the global top 1%, Australia accounts for 4.1% of the members of this wealthy group.

After a difficult financial market over the past few months, it is great to read some good news. While maintaining this top spot will need continuous hard work, we can at least give each other a pat on the back at our next BBQ.