Global household wealth rose by a record $40 trillion in 2025, lifting total household net worth to $570 trillion, even as economists caution that much of the increase reflects soaring financial asset prices rather than genuine expansion in the productive economy.
The findings are contained in the McKinsey Global Institute's latest report, Global Balance Sheet 2026: Imbalance and Divergence, which shows that the world's combined stock of real estate, financial assets and liabilities has expanded to almost $1.8 quadrillion, more than four times its level in 2000.
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Household wealth increased by 7.3 percent in 2025, outperforming the average annual growth rate of 5.9 percent recorded over the past quarter century.
Yet the report argues that the impressive headline masks growing structural imbalances, with wealth increasingly driven by rising valuations in financial markets instead of investments that raise long-term economic productivity.
According to McKinsey, the world economy has become significantly richer on paper, but not necessarily more productive.
The institute notes that the value of global balance sheets has grown much faster than global gross domestic product (GDP) over the past 25 years.
Since 2000, the world's stock of assets has increased by more than fourfold at current prices and market exchange rates, while economic output has expanded at a much slower pace. This widening gap raises questions over whether current wealth levels can be sustained without stronger underlying growth.
The report highlights that only around 20 percent of the additional household wealth created in 2025 came from new capital formation, such as investments in factories, infrastructure, machinery, technology and other productive assets. The remaining increase largely reflected higher market prices for existing assets.
Equities accounted for 57 percent of all new household wealth created during the year, making them by far the largest contributor. By comparison, real estate, traditionally the main driver of household wealth, contributed only 15 percent.
That marks a dramatic shift from the period between 2000 and 2024, when property appreciation generated the largest share of wealth gains across most economies.
McKinsey attributes much of the surge in equity values to investor enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence, particularly in the United States, where a handful of technology companies have driven extraordinary stock market gains.
The report shows that US corporate equity values climbed to 2.4 times corporate net assets in 2025—almost double the long-term historical average.
Between 2021 and 2025, just over half of the increase in the market capitalization of the S&P 500 Index came from the so-called "Magnificent Seven" technology giants, whose valuations have been propelled by expectations of rapid commercialization of artificial intelligence.
As a result, the United States now represents nearly half of the corporate equity value among the world's major economies, a share that has expanded significantly over the past 15 years.
McKinsey warns that this growing concentration has made global wealth increasingly dependent on the profitability and future earnings of a relatively small group of American technology companies.
If investor expectations around AI fail to materialize, the resulting market correction could have far-reaching consequences for household wealth across the world.
While the United States has experienced a balance-sheet expansion driven primarily by equity market appreciation, China presents a very different picture.
Instead of rising stock market valuations, China's balance sheet has expanded largely through increased borrowing. Corporate debt has reached around 80 percent of real assets, well above the global average of about 50 percent, while total corporate debt now stands at approximately 1.7 times China's GDP.
At the same time, falling property prices have reduced household wealth, reflecting the prolonged weakness in China's once-booming real estate sector.
McKinsey describes these contrasting trends as the defining feature of today's global financial landscape.
The world's two largest economies are expanding their balance sheets through fundamentally different mechanisms—one driven by rapidly rising equity valuations and the other by mounting leverage.
Both approaches, the institute argues, carry significant risks.
Beyond the United States and China, household wealth per capita continued to increase across most economies in 2025. However, in many countries wealth growth failed to keep pace with GDP growth because property markets slowed after years of rapid appreciation.
