82 Percent Of The World’s Wealth Went To The One Percent In 2017, According To Oxfam Report (Report)

Charity confederation, Oxfam, released a report showing how the one percent continue to remain at the top of the economic food chain. According to the charity, 42 people own the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 percent globally.

The organization expressed concern over the growing inequality gap between the rich and the poor.  Last year saw the richest people on Earth gaining 82 percent of the money generated while the low-tier half didn’t register any change.

Oxfam believes these worrying numbers are due to a significant increase in the influence that companies have on policy decisions. In addition, they also cited the erosion of worker’s rights, tax evasion, and cost-cutting.

These factors have tilted the world’s economy even further towards the one percent. The charity revealed that billionaires saw their wealth gradually increase by 13 percent on a yearly basis from 2006 to 2015. In 2017, billionaires amassed in total an estimated $762 billion. More so, the report found that nine out of 10 of the world’s 2,043 billionaires were male.

The charity suggests that the wealthy became wealthier due to healthy global stock markets, particularly individuals who held financial assets. One example is Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who became $6 billion richer in the first week of last year.

Chief executive of Oxfam Great Britain, Mark Goldring, is worried that the global economy continues to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. According to him, an economy that concentrates wealth in a single party is nothing more than a “symptom of a system that is failing the millions of hard-working people on poverty wages who make our clothes and grow our food”.

Oxfam based its report on data from financial media company, Forbes, as well as the annual Credit Suisse Global Wealth datebook, which had relayed the world’s wealth distribution since 2000.

A typical survey looks at an individual’s wealth based on the value of his or her’s assets. This includes their property and land, however, the survey does not take into the account any debts they may gold. More so, the data doesn’t include wages and income to determine what the individual is perceived to own.

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