After inflation, Australia’s wealth increased by 7.0% between March 2020 (before COVID) and March 2023, driven largely by the rising value of owner-occupied homes – up 43.2% from $4.16 trillion to $5.95 trillion.

The value of debt is growing faster than the value of assets (53.0% vs. 22.2%), but not enough to stop the growth of overall wealth – the value of assets is now six times the value of debt.

Half the population now accounts for 95.4% of the nation’s net wealth, while the other half accounts for only 4.6% of the nation’s net wealth.

However, the wealth held by the richest 10% of the population fell from 47.6% to 42.1% of the nation’s wealth. The share of wealth held by the next richest 40% increased the most, from 48.9% to 53.3%. The poorest half of the population, dominated by renters, saw an increase in their share of wealth – but only from 3.6% to 4.6%.

The bottom 10% of the population has had the hardest time during the pandemic, with net wealth for this decile moving backwards at a rapid pace. The average amount of net wealth held by this decile is in negative territory and moving back, down more than 400% since March 2020. The bottom 10% of the population is the only decile to lose wealth over the past three years.

The importance of home ownership for wealth generation is illustrated by the fact that the richest 10% of Australians are dominated by those who have paid off or are paying off their home loans. Only 1% of the wealthiest deciles are renters.

The Sixth Edition of the Roy Morgan Wealth Report 2023, released today, provides the full picture of the wealth of individual Australians and how it has changed during COVID. The report offers fully detailed data on the net wealth of Australians by calculating total personal assets (owner/occupant home, superannuation/pension and annuities, deposit and transaction accounts, property investments, other direct investments and funds under management) and subtracting total personal debt (owner occupied mortgages, mortgage or investment properties, personal loans, other loans and shared cards).

Roy Morgan is able to provide this information thanks to the most extensive and longest-running study of the financial behavior of consumers in Australia. The survey, which has been conducted continuously for more than 20 years, includes over 50,000 in-depth, multi-mode interviews each year. This provides privileged access to every aspect of Australians’ lives, including fully detailed financial positions, providing data of unparalleled depth and breadth.

It enables analysis of true gross wealth by age, location, home ownership status and more, showing exactly what form that wealth takes, how evenly or otherwise it is distributed, how it has grown and what further changes are likely in the coming years.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says:

“As a country we’ve done pretty well since March 2020 and remember it’s not just post-Covid, in that period we’ve also had 13 interest rate rises, crushing cost of living pressures and alarming inflation.”

“So to end up 7.0% richer now than we were then, even after accounting for inflation, is a very good result.”

“The other outstanding discovery in the latest Wealth report is that so much wealth is in the hands of the top half of the population. To see the bottom half holding less than 5% of the wealth speaks to the wealth divide in Australia. And the finding that the poorest 10% of our nation has gone backwards and further into debt is extremely alarming. This is the kind of critical insight that is only available through deep data that starts with a holistic view of individual Australians.

“There are well-established links linking overall wealth and the distribution of wealth to national well-being in the broadest sense, and we are committed to continuing to provide this kind of important data.

“The Roy Morgan Wealth Report is part of our long history of mapping trends and changes in Australian society. It provides political and business leaders and those who lead vital NGOs with robust evidence-based data to optimize the decisions they make for the benefit of all Australians.”

The Roy Morgan Wealth Report

The sixth edition of the Roy Morgan Wealth Report provides financial institutions, government and other organizations with unique insight into the personal wealth of Australians by measuring both debt and assets. It uses information from Australia’s largest and longest-running survey of consumer financial behavior to fill knowledge gaps about individual wealth across the population.

With the onset of COVID, the state of wealth worldwide has been severely affected. This report takes the start of the pandemic (March 2020) as an initial point of focus and measures the impact on Australia of this global shock and tracks changes in wealth to March 2023. To provide historical context, the time series graphs in this report show data from 2007, although the commentary focuses on the differences between March 2020 and March 2023.