85 Equals Half of the World

An Oxfam report indicates that the richest 85 people control $1.7 trillion of wealth, equivalent to the wealth of the bottom half of the world's population.  The wealth of the top one percent is $110 trillion, nearly half the wealth in the entire world.

Update (January 22):  Emily Lodish points out that the Oxfam report documents how the wealth gap in the United States has grown more, and is now greater than just about any other developed country.

Update (January 30):  Michael Moran wonders if concern about inequality among the super rich is more than just talk.  The intention isn't clear when it's described as "the number one threat to global security".

Update (February 5):  Paul Buchheit describes inequality in the United States which is, in some ways, relatively worse than other parts of the world.

Update (April 1):  Research by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman show that the top 0.01 percent have increased their share of national wealth more than the "bottom" 99 percent of the top 1 percent over the past 40 years.

Update (April 12):  Gabriel Zucman also has a paper demonstrating that a lot of wealth is hidden in off-shore tax havens.  Paul Krugman thinks that would be the norm rather than the exception.

Update (April 19):  Felix Salmon argues that indebtedness distorts any calculation of wealth.

Update (May 18):  Sean McElwee reports on how wealth inequality makes it harder for those at the bottom to save thus turning to debt as a safety net.

Update (June 20):  Paul Buchheit writes about greed and puts together a couple of interesting facts:  The Oxfam report indicates that the wealthiest one percent in the U.S. captured 95 percent of the gains since the recession ended.  And a Credit Suisse report shows that U.S. wealth grew from a recent low of $46.7 trillion at the end of 2008 to $72.1 trillion by mid-2013.  If we "generously" distribute about $24 trillion to about 13 million U.S. millionaires (not quite the same as the top one percent), we get an increase of about $2 million per person.

Update (June 28):  Sean McElwee interviews Gabriel Zucman.

Update (August 12):  More about Zucman's research on how wealth is undercounted.

Update (November 23):  Oxfam calls for action to end extreme inequality with their Even It Up campaign.

Make governments work for citizens and tackle extreme inequality

Promote women’s economic equality and women’s rights

Pay workers a living wage and close the gap with skyrocketing executive reward

Share the tax burden fairly to level the playing field

Close international tax loopholes and fill holes in tax governance

Achieve universal free public services by 2020

Change the global system for research and development (R&D) and pricing
of medicines so everyone has access to appropriate and affordable medicines

Implement a universal social protection floor

Target development finance at reducing inequality and poverty,
and strengthening the compact between citizens and their government

Update (November 30):  Sean McElwee describes how the financial sector makes inequality worse and endorses a financial transaction tax.

Update (December 30):  The 400 richest people gained $92 billion in wealth during 2014 for a total of $4.1 trillion.

Update (January 28, 2015):  Mona Chalabi has the list of the 80 wealthiest people in the world.

Update (December 4, 2015):  A report from the Institute for Policy Studies finds that the 20 wealthiest Americans own as much as the bottom half of the country (152 million people).

Update (December 23, 2015):  Sue Sturgis collects facts about inequality.

Number of the richest U.S. households whose wealth exceeds that of the country's entire 42 million African Americans: 100

Number of the richest U.S. households whose wealth exceeds that of the country's more than 55 million Latinos: 186

The total wealth of those on the Forbes 400 list of richest people in the U.S.: $2.34 trillion

Update (January 17, 2016):  Apparently it now only takes 62 people to equal half of the world.

The wealth of the richest 62 has increased an astonishing 44 percent since 2010, to $1.76 trillion. Meanwhile, the wealth of the bottom half of the world dropped by 41 percent.

Update (January 20, 2016):  More from the Oxfam report--soon the world's richest one percent will own fully half of all the wealth. The top twenty percent own 94.5 percent of the wealth.

Update (April 17, 2016):  Lynn Stuart Parramore argues that the top one-tenth percent are much different than even the rest of the top one percent.