Global Inequality Skyrockets: Report Says Top 1% Have Increased Wealth By 60% Over Last Two Decades

AlterNet [1] / By Alex Kane [2] Alternet

The world should work to end extreme wealth by 2025 and reduce the massive inequality has has skyrocketed over the past twenty years, the anti-poverty group Oxfam states in a new report [pdf]. [3]

While discourse on inequality has grown more prominent in recent years thanks to Occupy Wall Street and major institutions highlighting the problem of extreme inequality, the focus has largely been on only one-half of the problem: ending extreme poverty. Though Oxfam praises the efforts to eradicate extreme poverty, the group urges people to “demonstrate that we are also tackling inequality- and that means looking at not just the poorest but the richest.”

Oxfam also notes that massive inequality leads to environmental destruction. “Those in the 1% have been estimated to use as much as 10,000 times more carbon than the average US citizen,” the report states. “Increasing scarcity of resources like land and water mean that assets being monopolized by the few cannot continue if we are to have a sustainable future.” And lastly, Oxfam argues that inequality is unethical.

“We cannot afford to have a world where inequality continues to grow in the majority of countries. In a world of increasingly scarce resources, reducing inequality is more important than ever. It needs to be reduced and quickly,” says Oxfam.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
See more stories tagged with:
inequality [4],
oxfam [5]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/global-inequality-skyrockets-report-says-top-1-have-increased-wealth-60-over-last
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/alex-kane
[3] http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/cost-of-inequality-oxfam-mb180113.pdf
[4] http://www.alternet.org/tags/inequality
[5] http://www.alternet.org/tags/oxfam
[6] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B