If all the money in the world were distributed equally...

Imagine a scenario where all the cash on the planet is evenly distributed among all the inhabitants of Earth. In this case, a farmer from the American hinterland would have as much money as a craftsman from India, a herder from the African savanna, or a doctor from an Australian metropolis.

What amount do you think each person would receive? To put it briefly: this would be enough to purchase an economy car.

The modern financial system includes many elements that shape the concept of wealth. One way to implement an imagined redistribution of wealth to alleviate global poverty is to distribute all the cash circulating in the world currency markets.

These "cash" funds are known as the M2 money supply. It is an intermediate measure of the money supply that includes money in circulation worldwide, some highly liquid bank deposits with a term of up to 2 years, savings accounts, money market accounts, as well as deposits with a withdrawal notice of up to three months.

Simply put, M2 is all the money that you could have at your disposal relatively quickly.

The concept of M2 differs from global wealth or capital in that the latter includes assets and real estate, which, while potentially very valuable, are not easily exchangeable for cash.

According to data collected by the CEIC analytical center, the global money supply M2 in 2024 amounts to $123.3 trillion ( according to the European counting system ). This means that if we add up all the cash in all the economies of the world, we will obtain this amount. For comparison, according to the "Global Wealth Report 2024" prepared by the financial conglomerate UBS, net private wealth in the world reached a total of $487.9 trillion in 2024.

To visually represent this information, the analytical platform VisualCapitalist created an infographic using data on the M2 money aggregate from CEIC and comparing it with data on the world population registered by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Distribution of All Cash in the World

As already mentioned, the global money supply M2, recorded by CEIC in 2024, amounts to 123.313 trillion dollars ( by the Anglo-American numbering system ). At the same time, data on the world population for 2024 shows that we currently have 8,161,973,000 inhabitants on this small blue planet that we call Earth.

As a result of an even distribution, each resident of the planet would receive $15,108, which is equivalent to approximately €13,944.28 at the current exchange rate.

According to calculations by VisualCapitalist, this corresponds to the expenses of an average household over two years, the cost of a used car, or the price of a new budget car. Without additional options, of course.

Spain demonstrates the best financial performance

If a similar experiment were conducted but limited to data within Spain, the amount that each Spaniard would receive would be somewhat higher. According to CEIC records for Spain as of December 2024, the available money supply M2 amounted to 1,647,611.114 million dollars ( or 1.648 trillion dollars ).

On the other hand, data on the population from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) for January 2025 shows that there are 49,077,984 people living in Spain. This means that if the entire money supply were distributed among the residents of Spain, each would receive $33,571.29 or about €30,967.97 at the current exchange rate.