Time to end extreme inequality

The report entitled Even It Up: Time to End Extreme Inequality  presents new evidence that the gap between rich and poor is growing ever wider and is undermining poverty eradication.

– Since the financial crisis the number of billionaires has more than doubled and in that same period at least a million mothers died in childbirth.

– Oxfam has calculated that in 2014 the richest  85 people on the planet owned as much as the poorest half of humanity.

– Last year the richest 85 people saw their wealth increase by half a million dollars every minute.

– Seven out of ten people live in countries where the gap between the rich and poor is worse than thirty years ago.

– Today there are 16 billionaires in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside the 358 million people living in extreme poverty.

– Every year, 100 million people are pushed into poverty because they have to pay for health care.

– Without action, it will take 75 years to achieve equal pay between men and women.

“Oxfam’s report is a timely reminder that any real effort to end poverty has to confront the public policy choices that create and sustain inequality.” — Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics.