Richest 1% richer than rest of world
LONDON: The world’s richest 1% have more than twice the wealth of the rest of humanity combined, according to Oxfam, which calls on governments to adopt “inequality-busting policies.”
In a report published ahead of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, the Nairobi-headquartered charity said governments “are massively under-taxing rich individuals and corporations, and underfunding public services.’’
Oxfam’s “Time to Care’’ report also highlights gender-based economic disparities, saying women and girls are burdened with disproportionate responsibility for care work and fewer economic opportunities.
“Our broken economies are lining the pockets of billionaires and big business at the expense of ordinary men and women,” said Oxfam India chief executive officer Amitabh Behar. “No wonder people are starting to question whether billionaires should even exist.”
The world’s three richest people amassed a total of $231 billion over the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Facebook Inc chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg — the fifthrichest person in the world — had the highest boost last year, with a net gain of about $6 billion. Amazon.com Inc CEO Jeff Bezos still claims the top spot with a net worth of $116 billion.
The total wealth of the top 20 billionaires has doubled from $672 billion to $1,397 billion since 2012, according to Bloomberg Wealth.
An individual who saved $10,000 a day since the construction of Egypt’s pyramids would still only have a fifth of the average fortune of the world’s top five, Oxfam said.
Oxfam’s critics have dismissed the headline inequality statistics as misleading and suggest that they drastically overstate the scale of the problem. The charity has repeatedly defended its analysis and challenged such accusations.
Oxfam’s annual statistics rely on Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth report, which the charity itself said suffered from poor quality of data and might even underestimate the scale of wealth disparities.
Citing World Bank research, Oxfam said reducing inequality had a bigger effect on lowering extreme poverty than economic growth.
“That analysis shows that if countries reduced income inequality by 1% each year, 100 million fewer people would be living in extreme poverty by 2030,” it said.
Figures from the Washingtonbased lender show extreme poverty has declined drastically in the past two decades.
They show the number of people living on less than $1.90 a day declined by 1.1 billion from 1990.
The World Bank warns however that poverty reduction has slowed or even reversed in some countries. 736 million people still lived in extreme poverty in 2015, more than half of whom are in Sub-Saharan Africa.