Just in time for the World Economic Forum’s annual get-together in Davos, Oxfam has released a new report on how rich the world’s richest people are. As it turns out, the one percent are still very rich, and they’re set to get even richer while everyone else … won’t.
According to Oxfam’s research:
… The richest 1 percent have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44 percent in 2009 to 48 percent in 2014 and at this rate will be more than 50 percent in 2016. Members of this global elite had an average wealth of $2.7 million per adult in 2014. Of the remaining 52 percent of global wealth, almost all (46 percent) is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world’s population. The other 80 percent share just 5.5 percent and had an average wealth of $3,851 per adult — that’s 1/700th of the average wealth of the 1 percent.
“Do we really want to live in a world where the 1 percent own more than the rest of us combined?” asked the organization’s head, Winnie Byanyima. Depends on whom she’s referring to when she says “we,” we guess!
