Forum Economique mondial

Dangerous, poorly paid work for the many is supporting extreme wealth for the few. Women are in the worst work, and almost all the super-rich are men. Governments must create a more equal society by prioritizing ordinary workers and small-scale food producers instead of the rich and powerful.

Eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity, according to a new report published by Oxfam today to mark the annual meeting of political and business leaders in 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.

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.