“What is particularly worrying in India’s case is that economic inequality is being added to a society that is already fractured along the lines of caste, religion, region and gender.”
Professor Himanshu
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Oxfam Report
The gap between rich and poor in the world is widening. Oxfam’s report was presented at the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos and many shocking revelations were made in it.
Oxfam Report In World Economic Forum: The gap between the rich and the poor is widening in the world. Oxfam’s report was presented at the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos and many shocking revelations were made in it. While the wealth of the world’s five richest people has doubled, 5 billion people are facing financial crisis.
Richest person in the world
According to the Forbes Billionaires List, the richest person in the world is Elon Musk with a current net worth of $230 billion. Bernard Arnault is in second place with $182.4 billion.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is in third place with a net worth of $176.9 billion. Larry Ellison is fourth with a net worth of $135.2 billion and Mark Zuckerberg is fifth with $132.3 billion.
In the last four years, the five richest people in the world earned 14 million(1.4Crore) dollars every hour. If we convert this amount into Indian currency, it is approximately Rs 116 crores. This means that the 5 richest people in the world have earned more than Rs 100 crore every hour in the last 4 years.
148 companies made a profit of 1.8 trillion dollars (1Lakh Crore)
The top 148 companies in the estimated corporate sector posted profits of $1.8 trillion, 52 percent higher than the 3-year average. Only 0.4 percent of the world’s 1,600 largest companies in the private sector provided workers with wages and other benefits commensurate with their work.
800 million(80Crore) workers pay cut
Due to salary cuts, food and livelihood crisis is facing the workers. Around 800 million(80Crore) workers around the world have lost their wages. 25 days annual income of employees is decreasing.
According to the report, the fortunes of several wealthy individuals have increased, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and investor Warren Buffett.
Why has economic inequality increased?
According to an Oxfam report, the last few years have proved to be particularly bad in terms of economic inequality. In the last four years, crores of people have become poor due to Corona epidemic, war and inflation.
After 2020, around 5 billion(500Crore) people have been impoverished worldwide so far. On the other hand, the wealth of a select few has increased rapidly.
Key Fact of wealth inequality
• The top 10% of the Indian population holds 77% of the total national wealth.
• It would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year.
• Many ordinary Indians are not able to access the health care they need. 63 million of them are pushed into poverty because of healthcare costs every year – almost two people every second.
• Billionaires’ fortunes increased by almost 10 times over a decade and their total wealth is higher than the entire Union budget of India for the fiscal year 2018-19, which was at INR 24422 billion.
• There are 119 billionaires in India. Their number has increased from only 9 in 2000 to 101 in 2017. Between 2018 and 2022, India is estimated to produce 70 new millionaires every day.
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