Thread: Richest 1% to own more than rest of world, Oxfam says

18 January 2015 Last updated at 23:49 ET

Richest 1% to own more than rest of world, Oxfam says

The world's richest 1% of people will continue to become wealthier, says Oxfam

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Wealth amassed by the richest 1% will overtake the amount owned by the rest of the people in the world, according to a study by charity group Oxfam.

The richest 1% of people will see their share of global wealth increase to more than 50% in 2016 at the current rate of growth.

Their wealth increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year, said the group.

Oxfam's report warns that the "explosion in inequality" is holding back the fight against global poverty.

Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International asked whether people really wanted to live in a world where the 1% own more than the rest of the people 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," she said in a statement on Monday ahead of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos.

Rich getting richer
Of the remaining 52% of global wealth, almost 46% is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world's population, Oxfam said.

The remaining population account for just 5.5% of global wealth and their average wealth was $3,851 (£2,544) per adult in 2014.

That compares to an average wealth of $2.7m per adult for the elite 1%.

Ofxam said it will push for urgent action to stem the "rising tide of inequality", starting with a crackdown on tax evasion by companies.

The study comes just a day before US President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, in which he is expected to call for tax increases on the wealthy to help the middle class.

In October, a report from banking giant Credit Suisse also said that the richest 1% of people own nearly half of the world's wealth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30875633

80 rich people now have as much as 50% of the rest of humanity combined

Inequality rising. (Reuters/Romeo Ranoco)
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WRITTEN BY
Cassie Werber@cassiewerber
an hour ago

Billionaires are getting richer, according to a new study from Oxfam. Gather together the wealth of the world’s richest people, and you now only need 80 of them before there’s enough in the pot to equal everything owned by the poorest 50% of the rest of the world combined. Back in 2010, you’d have needed 388 of the world’s richest to balance those scales.



The richest of the top 1%, the top billionaires on Forbes’ rich list, have seen their wealth accumulate faster over the last five years than even the rest of the super-rich, Oxfam said. In 2010, the richest 80 people in the world had a net wealth of $1.3 trillion. By last year, that was up to 1.9 trillion, an increase of $600 billion.

Together with the rest of the 1%, that group owned 48% of global wealth in 2014. That’s more uneven than in 2010, when they owned a little over 44%.

However, according to Oxfam’s data, we’ve been here before. Back in 2000, the 1% owned a higher percentage of global wealth than they do today. For a few years, the trend seemed to show that number falling, as the world’s poorest clawed some of it back. But in the past five years, that’s reversed.

Part of the problem, as identified by Oxfam, is that the rate of increase for the rich has speeded up, and it’s now so much higher than that for everyone else that it’s increasing the gap.

The 1% has entered parlance, but who’s included? And do they constitute a problem or an asset?

Who are these people?

With a world population of 7.2 billion, there are around 72 million people in the top 1%—not all of whom are billionaires. In 2014, there were 1,645 people listed by Forbes as being billionaires, with Bill Gates back at the top after a year off. Of these, 90% are male, and 30% are American. And there’s evidence they’ve been running the show for a long, long time.

Is rising inequality inevitable?

Oxfam says not. In a campaign, the charity focuses on changes that could be made to the way global society is organized, including the eradication of extreme poverty and economic empowerment of women.

Why does it matter?

Economists like Dan Altman and Thomas Piketty argue that wealth inequality hampers growth and will only get worse in the future. Some have argued that it could be a good thing. And many have blamed it for misery, hopelessness and, ultimately, violence.

http://qz.com/329099/80-rich-people-...nity-combined/

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