Over the next 20 years, 500 people will hand over $2.1 trillion to their heirs – a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people
The incomes of the poorest 10% of people increased by less than $3 a year between 1988 and 2011, while the incomes of the richest 1% increased 182 times as much.
one in nine people still go to bed hungry. Had growth been pro- poor between 1990 and 2010, 700 million more people, most of them women, would not be living in poverty today.
three-quarters of extreme poverty could in fact be eliminated now using existing resources, by increasing taxation and cutting down on military and other regressive spending.
over the last 25 years, the top 1% have gained more income than the bottom 50% put together.
Big businesses did well in 2015/16: profits are high and the world‟s 10 biggest corporations together have revenue greater than that of the government revenue of 180 countries combined.
In the 1980s, cocoa farmers received 18% of the value of a chocolate bar – today they get just 6%.
The International Labour Organization estimates that 21 million people are forced labourers, generating an estimated $150bn in profits each year.
The world‟s largest garment companies have all been linked to cotton-spinning mills in India, which routinely use the forced labour of girls.
Apple allegedly paid 0.005% of tax on its European profits in 2014.
Kenya is losing $1.1bn every year in tax exemptions for corporations, nearly twice its budget for health – this in a country where women have a 1 in 40 chance of dying childbirth.
In the UK, 10% of profits were returned to shareholders in 1970; this figure is now 70%.
Thirty years ago, pension funds owned 30% of shares in the UK; now they own only 3%.
The world‟s third richest man, Carlos Slim, controls approximately 70% of all mobile phone services and 65% of fixed lines in Mexico, costing 2% of GDP.
The 1,810 billionaires on the 2016 Forbes list, 89% of whom are men, own $6.5 trillion – as much wealth as the bottom 70% of humanity.
one-third of the world‟s billionaire wealth is derived from inherited wealth, while 43% can be linked to cronyism.
the wealth held by the super- rich since 2009 has increased by an average of 11% per year. If billionaires continue to secure these returns, we could see the world‟s first trillionaire in 25 years.
The fortune of Bill Gates has risen 50% or $25bn since he left Microsoft in 2006, despite his commendable efforts to give much of it away.
Countries compete to attract the super-rich, selling their sovereignty. For an investment of at least £2m, you can buy the right to live, work and buy property in the UK and benefit from generous tax breaks. In Malta, a major tax haven, you can buy full citizenship for $650,000.
$7.6 trillion of wealth is hidden offshore.
Africa alone loses $14bn in tax revenues due to the super-rich using tax havens – Oxfam has calculated this would be enough to pay for the healthcare that could save the lives of four million children and to employ enough teachers to get every African child into school.
In the US, the top rate of income tax was 70% as recently as 1980; it is now 40%.43 In the developing world, taxation on the rich is lower still: Oxfam‟s research shows that the average top rate is 30% on incomes, and the majority is never collected.
