26 Billionaires Own The Same Wealth As The Poorest 3.8 Billion People
The gap between rich and poor is fracturing society, poisoning politics and fueling public anger, according to a new report from anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam, which found that last year just 26 people owned the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people. This figure is down from 43 the year before.
The Public Good or Private Wealth? report, published Sunday, found that the wealth of billionaires has increased by $900 billion in the last year, or $2.5 billion a day. This bonanza has not been felt by the poorest half of the world, which saw its wealth decline by 11 percent.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the number of billionaires has doubled, according to the report, and the very rich along with corporations are paying lower taxes than they have in decades. At the same time, 3.4 billion people are living in poverty on less than $5.50 a day, and women are often hardest hit. Men hold 50 percent more of the world’s wealth than women, according to the report.
“The economy we have today is fundamentally inhuman,” Paul O’Brien, Oxfam America’s vice president for policy and campaigns, told HuffPost. He said he was disappointed but not surprised by the report’s findings. “You’re not going to get a decrease in extreme wealth until you have leadership committed to tackling its root causes, and right now we don’t.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oxfam-report-wealth-inequality-poverty-tax_us_5c408586e4b027c3bbbeb91d
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