For the first time ever, the Chinese middle class is larger than its American counterpart.
According to a report published by Credit Suisse on Tuesday, there are now 109 million middle-class adults in China, compared to just 92 million in the United States.
Of course, it’s important to put these numbers into perspective. First off, Credit Suisse defines “middle class” on a country-by-country basis. In China, an individual must make at least US$28,000/year to be considered middle class; in the United States, that number is around $34,000.
Courtesy of Quartz
China also has more than four times as many people as the United States, so by percentage, the Chinese middle class is still much smaller than its American counterpart. Slate reports:
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.
That being said, China’s economic growth in recent years has been nothing short of spectacular. In 1980, China only controlled about 2 percent of global wealth; today, that number is at nearly 10 percent.
China’s growth has been especially impressive since the turn of the century. MarketWatch reports:
In 2000, the country’s wealth was similar to that of the U.S. circa 1939, the report found. By 2015, it had expanded to the level of the U.S. in 1972, effectively accomplishing a 33-year leap in less than half the time.
This map of Chinese wealth by region shows that most of China’s wealth is concentrated along the coast, while much of inland China remains impoverished (Courtesy of The Atlantic)
But it’s not all good news for China’s economy. Growth has slowed in recent years and the country is still dealing with the repercussions of a stock market crash earlier this summer.
Still, according to the Credit Suisse report, household wealth will continue to grow faster in China than in most developed countries over the next few years. The report also projects that China will have roughly 2.3 million millionaires by the year 2020, 74 percent more than they have today.
Read more from MarketWatch and Slate.
BONUS:
Check out the chart below — courtesy of NPR’s Planet Money — to see the upper and lower limits of “middle class” in 30 of the biggest U.S. cities:
Click to enlarge