SIR – The news that the combined wealth of the world’s richest one per cent will overtake that of the remaining 99 per cent by 2016, should not be a big surprise to those who have watched burgeoning inequality increasing over the last 35 years.
Oxfam’s latest report warns that rising inequality is holding back the fight against global poverty at a time when more than a billion people still live on less than $1. 25 (£0.83) a day.
Global wealth “ is increasingly concentrated among a small wealthy elite.”
Those in the “one per cent” command an average wealth of $2.7million (£1.8million) per adult.
Winnie Byanyima of Oxfam International, said, “The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and...failure to tackle it will set the fight against poverty back decades.”
The poor are hurt twice by rising inequality– they get a smaller share of the economic pie and because extreme inequality hurts growth, there is less pie to be shared around.
Unsurprisingly, Oxfam research shows 20 per cent of billionaires have interests in the financial sectors!
David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose
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