Latest figures on income inequality are staggering to say the least. In 2017, only 1% of the world’s population pocketed 80% of the total wealth. Oxfam International has released a detailed report on the subject.
The “Reward Work, Not Wealth” Report
The organization worked with World Economic Forum (WEF) and extracted information from Credit Suisse Global Wealth Data book released in November 2017. The project used Forbes’ billionaires list to calculate wealth estimates and produced the following astonishing facts:
- Since 2010, billionaire wealth has risen by an average of 13%. In contrast, worker wealth has risen by only 2%.
- The number of billionaires rose at one each day between the month of March in 2016 and 2017.
- A CEO of an international fashion brand earns in just four days what a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in an entire lifetime.
- In the US, a corporate CEO earns in just one day what an ordinary worker makes in a year
- 2.5 million Vietnamese garment workers are below living wage. It would cost 2.2. billion dollars a year to change this.
- Only 1.5% of global billionaires’ tax could send every child to school for free.
The Billionaire Boom
Oxfam International is a charitable organization to end monetary injustice. Executive Director Mrs Winnie Byanyima declares that the current economic system is not of growth, but of failure. The rich are growing richer and the poor are growing poorer. It is what the report co-author called “[money] being concentrated in fewer hands”. This is known as the Gatsby curve. It is the death of any economy.
Byanyima recommend minimum wage laws and preventing tax evasion from ‘the billionaire bonanza’.
The people who make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food are being exploited to ensure a steady supply of cheap goods and swell the profits of corporations and billionaire investors.
Marxist Feminism: Economies for Everyone
Oxfam is concerned about the status of women in economy. Income inequality is more prominent on the subject of female workers. Women are offered the lowest paid and least secure forms of work.
Byanyima criticized US President Donald Trump for creating a ‘cabinet of billionaires’.
She calls for governments and legal agencies to focus on worker rights.
Yahi tou dil kay wazeer e azam nawaz sharif farmatay farmatay thack gaay hain kay pehlay mugh sai ehtasab kyun shuru kea…..duniya aur pakistan mai aur bhe tou hain, pehlay ounka ehtasab kartay !