Richest 1 percent will soon own more than the other 99 combined: Report

The richest 1 percent already own 48 percent of all the world's wealth, and will own 50 percent or more by 2016, according to a new Oxfam report.

|
Sunday Alamba/AP/File
Executive director of the charity Oxfam Winnie Byanyima speaks during the World Economic Forum on Africa in Abuja, Nigeria, May 8, 2014. In a report released Monday Jan. 19, Oxfam is warning that rising inequality is holding back the fight against global poverty.

The richest 1 percent of the population will own more than half the world's wealth by 2016, Oxfam International said in a report released as the World Economic Forum begins in Davos, Switzerland.

Oxfam said the world's richest people saw their share of global wealth jump to 48 percent last year from 44 percent in 2009. Rising inequality is holding back the fight against global poverty as the world's biggest companies lobby the US and European Union for beneficial tax changes at a time when average taxpayers are still paying the bill for the financial crisis, Oxfam said.

"Do we really want to live in a world where the 1 percent own more than the rest of us combined?" Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam's executive director, said in a statement. "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."

While world leaders such as President Barack Obama and International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde have talked about tackling extreme economic inequality "we are still waiting for many of them to walk the walk," Byanyima said.

The healthcare and financial services industries spent almost $900 million to lobby the US government for favorable legislation in 2013, and more than $200 million was spent on lobbying in the EU, Oxfam said.

At the same time, one in nine people don't have enough to eat and more than a billion people live on less than $1.25 a day, Oxfam said, ticking off statistics that paint a grim picture for all but the world's richest.

The charity is calling for a crackdown on tax avoidance by corporations and rich people, as well as increased investment in health and education and equal pay legislation.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Richest 1 percent will soon own more than the other 99 combined: Report
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2015/0119/Richest-1-percent-will-soon-own-more-than-the-other-99-combined-Report
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe