davos

Inequality is a killer, contributing to the deaths of at least one person every four seconds. It makes our world less safe for all of us — and particularly for the poorest people, women and racialized groups. This is not by chance, but by choice. For a more equal future, we must fight inequality together.

The richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. The fight against poverty will not be won until the inequality crisis is tackled.

Runaway inequality has created a world where 62 people own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population – a figure that has fallen from 388 just five years ago, according to an Oxfam report published today ahead of the annual gathering of the world’s financial and political elites in Davos.

Runaway inequality has created a world where 62 people own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population combined, according to an Oxfam report published today ahead of the annual gathering of the world’s financial and political elites in Davos.

Global wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small wealthy elite. This briefing explains Oxfam’s methodology and data sources and updates key inequality statistics.

Wealthy elites have co-opted political power to rig the rules of the economic game, undermining democracy and creating a world where the 85 richest people own the wealth of half of the world’s population, worldwide development organization Oxfam warns in a report published today. 

Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population, and seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years.

An explosion in extreme wealth and income is exacerbating inequality and hindering the world’s ability to tackle poverty, Oxfam warned today in a briefing published ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.