‘Rich to get richer as world inequality grows’

TOKYO (AP) — Global inequality has stabilized at high levels in recent years, a report said yesterday, despite gains among the poor in China and much milder disparities in incomes and wealth in Western Europe.

The World Inequality Report 2018 is based on a massive, interactive collection of data compiled by an international team of researchers that includes renowned economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.

It shows inequality has soared since 1980 although the global top “one percent” saw their share of global income slip slightly after the 2008 financial crisis, to just above 20 percent. At the same time, the share of global income going to the bottom 50 percent rose slightly, to just under 10 percent, thanks to gains in populous, fastgrowing China and India.

The United States and Western Europe had similar levels of inequality in 1980, with the top one percent holding about 10 percent of income. But by 2016, the top one percent in Europe held a 12 percent income share, compared with 20 percent in the US.

The bottom 50 percent of Americans saw their income share sink from more than 20 percent in 1980 to 13 percent in 2016, it said. The authors of the report said the data it analyzes were collected from a wide range of government sources over 15 years.

One of the aims of the study is to push governments to be more transparent about financial data to ensure that debates over inequality and the policies that affect incomes and wealth are well informed.