Earlier this year, Oxfam International released an unexpected report that found that the leading 1% of revenue earners worldwide are positioned to have more than half of all global wealth in 2016. The study was revealed just before the Arena Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland this previous January.
To be more precise, the research study revealed that the wealthiest 1% on earth have actually viewed their share of wealth increase from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014. In the past five years alone, the wealthiest 80 experienced a doubling of their entire wealth.
As for the rest of the 52% of wealth on the planet, the large majority (46%) is in the hands of the wealthiest fifth of the globe’s populace. This means that 80% of the worldwide population own a mere 5.5% — which turns out to be a mere $3,851 per adult a year, or 1/700th of the 1%’s annual income — with more than a billion people around the world living on less than $1.25 a day.
Last year, Oxfam International launched a research study that revealed that the 85 wealthiest folks in the world possessed the same amount of wealth as the 3.5 billion people that consist of the bottom half of the entire global income. That amount that the 85 wealthiest people on the planet own, you ask? – Over $1.9 trillion.
Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of Oxfam International, released a statement to accompany this report:
“Do we really want to live in a world where the one percent own more than the rest of us combined? The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast.”
To address these issues of extreme and ever-growing difference between the rich and poor inequality, Oxfam International has proposed a “Seven Point Plan,” as the main point of its Even It Up Campaign:
- Strict enforcement of tax dodging by corporations and wealthy individuals
- Further investments in free public services (health and education)
- Fairly shift the tax burden toward wealth and capital and away from labor and consumption
- Introduce a minimum wage that can meet at least the annual cost of living
- Introduce pay equality legislation
- Ensure a minimum income guarantee
- Reach a global agreement to stop inequality.
If nothing is done to shift the tide in the global distribution of wealth, there will be drastic consequences for the entire global economy. “Extreme inequality isn’t just a moral wrong,” said Byanyima. “It hampers economic growth and…threatens the private sector’s bottom line.”
