62 People Have as Much as the Poorest 3.6B Combined

Wealth concentrated at 'tippy top of the pyramid,' Oxfam says
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 18, 2016 2:14 AM CST
62 People Have as Much as the Poorest 3.6B Combined
Nepalese women sit and wait for alms near the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Monday.   (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

The richest .000000001% has had a great few years and now owns as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the world's population combined, according to the latest report from Oxfam. The British charity says just 62 billionaires are now as rich as the poorest 3.6 billion people on the planet, making the world even more unequal than it was in 2010, when 388 super-wealthy individuals had as much as the poorest half, the Guardian reports. Oxfam, which cites sources such as the Forbes rich list, determined in 2015 that the wealthiest 1% of the world had accumulated more wealth than everybody else on the planet put together. "Wealth is moving rapidly to concentrate at the tippy, tippy top of the pyramid," an Oxfam America spokesman tells CNN.

"It is simply unacceptable that the poorest half of the world population owns no more than a small group of the global super-rich," Oxfam UK's chief executive tells the Guardian, noting that you could fit that group on a single bus. "In a world where one in nine people go to bed hungry every night, we cannot afford to carry on giving the richest an ever bigger slice of the cake." Oxfam says leaders' promises to reduce wealth inequality haven't translated into concrete action to tackle problems like tax-dodging. The charity estimates that if the super-wealthy weren't hiding trillions in offshore accounts, the world's governments would receive an extra $190 billion a year in tax revenue. (More billionaire stories.)

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