The gap between the super rich and the rest of the world widened last year as wealth continued to be owned by a small minority, a new study by global charity Oxfam says.
The charity said that some 82% of money generated last year went to the richest 1% of the global population while the poorest half saw no increase at all. The charity cited tax evasion, the erosion of worker's rights, cost-cutting and businesses' influence on policy decisions as reasons for the widening inequality gap, CNBC reported.
The charity also found the wealth of billionaires had increased by 13 percent a year on average in the decade from 2006 to 2015. Last year, billionaires would have seen an uptick of $762 billion — enough to end extreme poverty seven times over. It also claimed nine out of 10 of the world's 2,043 billionaires were men.
Oxfam said 42 people now had as much wealth as the poorest half, but it revised last year's figure to 61. It said the revision was due to improved data and said the trend of "widening inequality" remained.
The executive director of Oxfam International, Winnie Byanyima, said that these figures showed a failing system.
The head of the advocacy group argued that the people who "make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food" are being exploited in order to enrich corporations and the super wealthy.
Oxfam's report described how women in Vietnamese garment factories work far from home for poverty pay and don’t get to see their children for months at a time.
According to experts from Oxfam, the total “as” 3.6 billion poorest people in the world amounts to approximately $426 billion — an average of $118 per person.
Bill Gates ($75 billion), Amancio Ortega ($67 billion), Warren Buffett ($60.8 billion), Carlos Slim ($50 billion), Jeff Bezos ($45.2 billion), Mark Zuckerberg ($44.6 billion), Larry Ellison ($43.6 billion) and Michael Bloomberg ($40 billion) are collectively worth $426 billion,
