When people usually talk about wealth, they mean net worth. If you have a £2 million home in London and a £2 million mortgage to go along with it, your net wort

When people usually talk about wealth, they mean net worth. If you have a £2 million home in London and a £2 million mortgage to go along with it, your net worth is 0 (ignoring all other potential assets and liabilities). On the other hand, if you've paid it off then you have a net worth of £2 million. So when they talk about the wealth gap increasing, they mean real wealth as in net worth. Some people have ballooning net worth, others don't. Taking mortgages out of the equation doesn't change that. Unless you're talking about going back in time and arranging things so that no one can ever borrow money from anyone. Sure, without access to credit people would have a hard time buying homes. But that's such a radically different society, from a finance perspective, that it's pretty much meaningless to contemplate. I'm sure people would find other ways to access capital in the absence of credit.