America IS the 1%: You need just $34,000 annual income to be in the global elite... and HALF the world's richest people live in the U.S.

Global median salary is $1,225, says leading economist



Nearly half of the world's richest one per cent of people live in the U.S., according to a top economist.



But the threshold required to make it in to that elite group is lower than you might think - just $34,000 per person.



While the Occupy Wall Street movement has focussed on the top one per cent of earners in the U.S., Branko Milanovic, a World Bank economist, has suggested that anti-inequality protesters should be more concerned with wealth disparity across the globe.



The 1%: Half of the world's wealthiest people live in the U.S.

And although the rise of the middle class in the Third World has been loudly celebrated, Mr Milanovic points out that a middle-class salary in emerging economies would be considered dire poverty in the West.

Of the 60million or so people who made up the world's richest percentile at the time of the most recent data, around 29million live in the U.S.

The top one per cent comprises anyone with an income over $34,000 after tax, meaning a family of four must earn $136,000 to make it in the category, according to CNN.

One quarter of the group's members live in Europe, with 4million in Germany and 3million in each of the UK, France and Italy. Other countries with large numbers of 'the 1%' include Canada, Japan and Brazil.

Protest: The Occupy movement uses the slogan 'We are the 99%'

The proportion of the world's wealthiest people living in China, India, Russia and Africa is statistically insignificant, according to Mr Milanovic.



And the global median income is just $1,225 a year, meaning that the world's emerging middle classes are very far from reaching a level of wealth which would make them well-off by western standards.

Mr Milanovic said: 'It doesn't seem right to define as middle class people who would be on food stamps in the United States.'



Controversial: Branko Milanovic's views challenge orthodox views of inequality

His findings, first outlined in his book The Haves and the Have-Nots, published last year, serve as a reminder that despite the West's troubles it remains very much wealthier than the developing world.



The economic decline of the U.S., Europe and Japan has been widely predicted, but for the time being nearly all the world's rich are to be found in the West.



Even the poorest people in many developed countries are wealthy by global standards - for example, the poorest five per cent of Americans earn on average the same as the richest five per cent of Indians.



The Occupy protests have so far targeted inequality within rich economies.

