Richest eight tycoons on the planet are worth as much as HALF of the world’s poorest
Oxfam chief urges world leaders gathering in Switzerland to tackle growing inequality around the world
A GROUP of men small enough to fit into a golf buggy own £350 billion - the same wealth has HALF THE WORLD – Oxfam claims.
The charity hit out after revealing the richest eight tycoons on the planet are worth as much as the poorest 3.6 billion people.
The World’s Wealthiest
Oxfam GB chief Mark Goldring said the gap between rich and poor was far greater than feared – blaming a "warped" economy.
He urged world leaders gathering in Switzerland for the Davos Economic Summit this week to tackle growing inequality around the world.
And he called on business chiefs to commit to paying a living wage as well as their fair share of tax.
The charity said that in 2015, the world’s richest one per cent retained their share of global wealth – and still own more than the other 99 per cent combined.
Oxfam said the incomes of the poorest 10 per cent of the world increased by just £53 between 1988 and 2011. In contrast the richest 1 per cent saw their incomes rise £9,690– 182 times as much.
Mr Goldring said: “It is beyond grotesque that a group of men who could easily fit in a single golf buggy own more than the poorest half of humanity.";
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He went on: "While one in nine people on the planet will go to bed hungry tonight a small handful of billionaires have so much wealth they would need several lifetimes to spend it."
Among the eight billionaires in the latest research, Microsoft founder and known philanthropist Bill Gates tops the list.
Oxfam said its wealth has gone up 50 per cent or £20.5 billion since he left the IT giant in 2006, despite his campaigns to donate so much of it away.
Oxfam said: "If billionaires continue to secure these returns we could see the world’s first trillionaire in 25 years."
The charity added that based on its calculations – using data from the Forbes billionaire list and Credit Suisse global wealth data – nearly 10 per cent of the world’s poorest were in debt.
A leading think tank blasted Oxfam for being “persistently misleading”.
Ben Southwood, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, said: “Each year we are misled by Oxfam’s statistics.
“The data is fine – it comes from Credit Suisse – but the interpretation is not.
“It is not the wealth of the world’s rich that matters, but the welfare of the world’s poor, and this is improving every year.”
The think tank claimed that the proportion surviving on less than $2 a day has fallen from 69.9 per cent in 1981 to 43 per cent in 2008.