Oxfam has released a report on the concentration of world wealth called “WORKING FOR THE FEW, Political capture and economic inequality”. This report emphasizes the takeover of political bodies by the wealthy and the subsequent policies and tax relaxation to guarantee that their wealth would expand. They also list policies that can reverse this, including more progressive tax policies. The top facts have been widely quoted in the news, and I thought that I would add more. Much of the Oxfam research came from other sources including the Credit Suisse “Global Wealth Report 2013″. Since I have compiled earlier data on wealth, under my category ” Wealth”, I add this for a more complete picture.
Starting from the top down, the total world wealth is $241 trillion. The poorest half (50%) of the world have only 0.71% of that wealth, or $1.7 trillion.
The top 1% of the world have $110 trillion, or 46% of the total wealth. This is 65 times the wealth of the bottom 50%.
Oxfam looked at Forbes list of the world’s richest, and found that the richest 85 have the same wealth as the poorest 50% of the world, or 3.5 billion people.
In the US, the richest 1% got 95% of the post financial crises growth. The poorer 90% got poorer.
The share of US income going to the top 1% in 1980 was 8%. In 2008-12, the share was 19%.
