Study: 82% of World’s Money Was Made by the Top 1% Last Year

Eighty-two percent of the money made last year went to the richest 1 percent of the world’s population, according to a report by anti-poverty charity Oxfam. With these numbers, the charity claimed that the gap between the global rich and poor has further increased. “Tax evasion, firms’ influence on policy, erosion of workers’ rights, and cost cutting” were the identified factors that contributed to the growing disparity. In this year’s report, the richest 42 people in the world had as much wealth as the poorest half. “However you look at it, this is an unacceptable level of inequality,” said Oxfam Chief Executive Mark Goldring. The report’s release is coincides with the World Economic Forum in Davos, where issues of inequality are discussed but “fade away at the first resistance,” said Goldring.