The Expanding Wealth Gap: How the Years Needed to Catch Up Grow Every Year

We often hear that if one person earns ten times more than another, the difference in their wealth will be proportionate. This is a huge misconception. The reality is far worse. The gap in savings doesn’t just stay the same—it grows dramatically each year. Over a lifetime, the difference becomes so extreme that the lower earner would need centuries, even millennia, to catch up.

The Starting Point

Let’s take two people:

• Person A earns £25,000 per year and can save £1,000 per year after expenses.
• Person B earns £250,000 per year and can save £200,000 per year after expenses.

At first glance, Person B saves 200 times more per year than Person A. That alone is striking. But what happens when we look at the passage of time?

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The Growing Years of Work

Each year, Person B’s savings increase by £200,000, while Person A’s increase by just £1,000. The number of years Person A would need to work just to save what Person B has at that moment grows every single year.

Year 1

• Person A has saved £1,000.
• Person B has saved £200,000.
• Person A needs 200 years of work to reach what Person B has now.

Year 2

• Person A has saved £2,000.
• Person B has saved £400,000.
• Now, Person A needs 400 years to catch up.

Year 3

• Person A: £3,000.
• Person B: £600,000.
• Now, it’s 600 years.

Year 10

• Person A: £10,000.
• Person B: £2,000,000.
• Now, Person A needs 2,000 years.

Year 20

• Person A: £20,000.
• Person B: £4,000,000.
• Now, it’s 4,000 years.

Year 40 (A Full Working Lifetime)

• Person A: £40,000.
• Person B: £8,000,000.
• Now, Person A would need 8,000 years to catch up.

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The Key Takeaway

The number of years Person A would need to work doesn’t just stay large—it keeps growing every single year.

• After 1 year, they need 200 years.
• After 10 years, they need 2,000 years.
• After 40 years, they need 8,000 years.

This is the true horror of wealth inequality. It is not just that the rich have more—it’s that the gap expands faster than a person can ever hope to close.

Even if Person A saved every single penny they earned, they would still never catch up.

The system isn’t just unfair. It is mathematically impossible for the poor to reach the wealth of the rich.

And the longer time goes on, the worse it gets.

So we have to ask: how do we accept a world where one person can earn in a single year what another would need to work thousands of years for?