January 22, 2018

Wealth inequality: the yawning gulf continues to widen

located:	USA, India, South Sudan, Switzerland
editor:	Gurmeet Singh

The universe's background radiation, the story goes, tells astrophysicists one thing: the universe is expanding; accelerating away in every direction. There was a bang, some 14 billion years ago, and that primal explosion still sends the universe reeling. Thinking about an ever-expanding universe may also remind us of the ever-expanding inequality gap.

Several years ago, the richest 100 people held as much as the global poorest; then it was the richest 75, then the richest 50 – now the richest 42 people in the world hold as much wealth as the poorest 3.7 billion people: a ratio of roughly 1:880,000,000.

In a report published on Monday to coincide with the gathering of some of the world’s richest people at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Oxfam said billionaires had been created at a record rate of one every two days over the past 12 months, at a time when the bottom 50% of the world’s population had seen no increase in wealth. It added that 82% of the global wealth generated in 2017 went to the wealthiest 1%.

The charity also said that such wealth disparity is evidence of a broken and rigged system, as opposed to a well-oiled one. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was named the world's richest man, with wealth equivalent to a billion and half of the world's poorest.

And the gap is widening – not closing. Although living standards are rising globally, and deep poverty is being eradicated, the wealth gap continues to widen. You can read the report here, and help Oxfam in fighting the growing divide.