How many of the world’s richest people have the same wealth as half of the globe’s total population?
Oxfam has calculated that:
- In 2015, just 62 individuals had the same wealth as 3.6 billion people – the bottom half of humanity. This figure is down from 388 individuals as recently as 2010.
- The wealth of the richest 62 people has risen by 44% in the five years since 2010 – that’s an increase of more than half a trillion dollars ($542bn), to $1.76 trillion.
- Meanwhile, the wealth of the bottom half fell by just over a trillion dollars in the same period – a drop of 41%.
- Since the turn of the century, the poorest half of the world’s population has received just 1% of the total increase in global wealth, while half of that increase has gone to the top 1%.
- The average annual income of the poorest 10% of people in the world has risen by less than $3 each year in almost a quarter of a century. Their daily income has risen by less than a single cent every year.
These figures are contained in a new Oxfam report entitled “An Economy For the 1%: How privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped” which you can access here.