The world’s 42 richest people have as much wealth as the bottom half of its population, an Oxfam report claims.
These top billionaires are sitting on a cash pile worth £1.1trillion – as much as the poorest 3.7billion people on the planet, the charity said in a report criticised by some experts for misinterpreting the facts to fit its agenda.
The gap has expanded as the richest tycoons, tech entrepreneurs and heirs and heiresses have been boosted by surging stock markets and record-low interest rates which allow their business empires to grow more quickly.
Last year, it took 61 billionaires to equal the bottom half and as recently as 2009 – when the mega-rich were suffering in the Great Recession – the figure was 380.
The world’s 42 richest people have as much wealth as the bottom half of its population, an Oxfam report claims. Pictured, billionaires Bill Gates (left) and Jeff Bezos (right)
Oxfam used the billionaires’ list compiled by Forbes magazine, which is topped by Microsoft founder Bill Gates on £62.1billion.
Other measures suggest that he has actually been overtaken by Jeff Bezos, the founder of internet shopping titan Amazon, as its share price has surged in the past few months.
The Oxfam report also suggests that 80 per cent of new wealth goes to the 1 per cent of people who are already richest.
It adds that the average billionaire’s fortune grew by 13 per cent a year between 2006 and 2015 – six times faster than the wages of ordinary workers.
It takes just four days for a chief executive of one of the world’s five biggest fashion retailers to earn as much as a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in their entire lifetime, the charity said.
Mark Goldring of Oxfam said: ‘Something is very wrong with a global economy that allows the one percent to enjoy the lion’s share of increases in wealth while the poorest half of humanity miss out.
Oxfam said it takes just four days for a CEO of one of the world’s five biggest fashion retailers to earn as much as a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in their entire lifetime. File photo
‘The concentration of extreme wealth at the top is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a system that is failing the millions of hard-working people on poverty wages who make our clothes and grow our food.’
‘The world has made huge strides forward in ending poverty but progress could be even faster if we did more to break down the barriers that are holding back the world’s poorest people.’
However, Oxfam’s methodology is disputed by top economists.
Sam Dumitriu of the free market Adam Smith Institute said that every day for the past 25 years, capitalism has lifted 138,000 people have been lifted out of extreme poverty.
He said: ‘The report is, as ever, exceptionally misleading and misses the point – we should care about the welfare of the poor, not the wealth of the rich.
‘As China, India and Vietnam embraced neoliberal reforms that enforce property rights, reduce regulations and increase competition, the world’s poorest have received a massive pay rise leading to a more equal global income distribution.’
‘It’s the countries that rejected free markets that have bucked the trend. In Venezuela, the move to socialism under Chavez and Maduro has meant that more than 75 per cent of the population now live in poverty with many unable to afford basic necessities like food and medicine, despite having the world’s largest proven oil reserves.’