How Rich Am I, Globally?
Enter your income, your country and how many people it supports. The calculator converts it to what it buys (purchasing power parity) and places it among the incomes of 8.2 billion people. The answer surprises almost everyone.
Last updated: November 2026 · Sources: World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform (2024), World Inequality Database, World Bank PPP conversion factors
In USD. Include everyone's income in the household.
Adults and children sharing the household budget.
Why almost everyone reading this is in the global top 10%
Half of the world lives on less than $2,900 a year per person, measured in what the money buys. A full-time job at the US federal minimum wage pays $15,080 a year, which already clears the global top 10% line for a single person. The feeling of being "middle class" comes from comparing with neighbours, colleagues and the people on screens, who are drawn from the same 10%. This calculator compares with everyone else.
| Situation (2026) | Income per person (PPP) | Global position |
|---|---|---|
| World Bank extreme poverty line | $785 ($2.15 a day) | Bottom 8% |
| Global median person | $2,900 | 50th percentile |
| Single person, US federal minimum wage, full time | $15,080 | Top 9% |
| Family of four, India, 1,200,000 rupees a year | $27,273 | Top 3.6% |
| Couple in Germany, 70,000 euros combined | $68,746 | Top 0.7% |
| Single person, US, $60,000 | $60,000 | Top 0.9% |
| Family of four, US, $120,000 | $60,000 | Top 0.9% |
| Single person, US, $250,000 | $250,000 | Top 0.09% |
Rows computed with this calculator. Household figures use the square-root equivalence scale, so a family of four needs twice the income of a single person for the same standard of living, not four times.
Worked example
A couple in Sweden with two children and a combined gross income of 900,000 kronor. Divide by the square root of 4 (that is 2) to get 450,000 kronor per equivalent person. Convert at the Swedish PPP factor of about 8.9 kronor per international dollar: $50,562 per person. On the global distribution that is the 98.8th percentile, so the family is in the top 1.2% of the world, richer than about 8.1 billion people, and lives on 17 times the global median. In Sweden the same family is close to the national median, which is the whole point of the comparison.
How the numbers are built
The distribution behind the calculator is a set of anchor points: the World Bank's three poverty lines ($2.15, $3.65 and $6.85 a day, which about 8%, 23% and 44% of the world live below in 2024), the global median of roughly $8 a day, and the top-share thresholds from the World Inequality Database (top 10% near $14,000 per person, top 1% near $55,000, top 0.1% near $200,000). Between anchors the curve is interpolated on a log scale, which is how income distributions behave. Your income is converted to international dollars with the World Bank's purchasing power parity factor, so 100,000 rupees in India and 100,000 yen in Japan are compared by what each buys at home, not by the exchange rate.
Household size uses the square-root scale: a household of n people needs sqrt(n) times the income of one person for the same living standard, because rent, heating and a car are shared. A couple on $80,000 is treated as $56,569 each, a family of four on $120,000 as $60,000 each.
How wrong can it be
A few percentile points at the top, more in the middle. The surveys that feed the global distribution measure consumption in poor countries and income in rich ones, under-count the very rich everywhere, and run two to four years behind. PPP factors for countries with high inflation (Argentina, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt) move every year and the ones here are rounded 2024 values. Treat "top 1.2%" as "somewhere between top 0.8% and top 2%". The direction of the result is not in doubt for anyone earning a rich-country wage: it is in the top few percent of humanity, whatever it feels like next to the neighbours.
Income is not wealth
This page ranks income, the flow. Wealth, the stock, is far more concentrated: the richest 10% of adults hold about three quarters of global net worth, and the median adult on Earth owns under $10,000 after debts. Owning a paid-off home in Europe or North America is enough to be in the global top 10% by wealth. The net worth calculator on this site gives the figure to compare; a future version of this page may rank it.
Frequently asked questions
How is "richer than X% of the world" calculated?+
Your household income is divided by the square root of household size (so a couple on $80,000 counts as $56,569 each, the OECD equivalence rule), converted to international dollars with the World Bank purchasing power parity factor for your country, and placed on the global distribution of income per person built from the World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform and the World Inequality Database. The percentile is the share of the world population with a lower income.
Is this before or after tax?+
Enter gross (pre-tax) income. The global distribution mixes income and consumption surveys depending on the country, so the result is an estimate within a few percentile points, not an exact rank. For high-tax countries the after-tax rank would be a little lower.
What is the global median income?+
About $2,900 per person per year in international dollars (roughly $8 a day) in 2024 prices. Half the world lives on less than that. The World Bank poverty line of $2.15 a day is $785 a year; about one person in twelve lives below it.
Why does purchasing power parity matter?+
A dollar buys more in India than in Switzerland. PPP conversion asks what your income buys locally, then compares that with what the same basket costs elsewhere. Without it, everyone in a cheap country looks poorer than they are. The factors here are approximate 2024 World Bank values and are the largest source of error in the result.
What income is top 1% globally?+
About $55,000 per person per year in international dollars, which for a single person in the US is $55,000 gross and for a couple with no children is a household income of about $78,000. Top 10% starts near $14,000 per person; top 0.1% near $200,000.
Does this include wealth or just income?+
Income only. Wealth (savings, property, pensions, debts) is far more unequal; the global median adult has net wealth of roughly $8,000 to $9,000, and a paid-off home in a rich country puts its owner in the top 10% by wealth. Income is what this page measures because it is what most people know about themselves.