Global wealth inequality continues to grow, report says

BERLIN – The world’s richest 85 people control the same amount of wealth as half the world’s population, according to a report issued Monday by the British-based anti-poverty charity Oxfam.

That means the world’s poorest 3.55 billion people must live on what the richest 85 possess. Another way to look at it: Each of the wealthiest 85 has access to the same resources as do about 42 million of the world’s poor, a number equal to the populations of Canada, Kentucky and Kansas, taken together.

The report was issued just before the World Economic Forum opens on Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland. The forum is a gathering spot for world political, academic and business leaders where, the forum’s website says, they “shape global, regional and industry agendas.”

In announcing the study, Oxfam’s website said that what it sees as the growing wealth gap undermines democracy.

“The past quarter of a century has seen wealth become ever more concentrated in the hands of fewer people,” it said. “The wealth of the 1 percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half.”

The report says 210 people joined the ranks of billionaires last year, bringing to about 1,400 the people who hold that status.

The report also said that while the recent financial crisis was an enormous burden on the world’s poor, it ended up being a huge benefit to the rich elite. The very wealthiest people collected 95 percent of the post-crisis growth, the report said.

The trend is more pronounced in the United States than in other nations, the report said, but hardly limited to the U.S. It said that in only two countries, Colombia and the Netherlands, had the share of income received by the wealthiest 1 percent not increased from 1980 to 2012.

In the United States, China and Portugal, the report said, the wealthiest 1 percent had seen its share of income more than double in the same period.

“To give an indication of the scale of wealth concentration, the combined wealth of Europe’s 10 richest people exceeds the total cost of stimulus measures implemented across the European Union between 2008 and 2010,” it said.

Oxfam urged countries to take steps to make certain policies didn’t make the situation worse.

“When there is growth and diminishing inequality, the rules governing markets are working in favor of the middle classes and the poorest sections of society,” the report said. “However, when only the rich are gaining, the rules start bending toward their interests exclusively.”