Wealth Inequalities

To wrap up our week of discussing wealth and race, I thought a global perspective might be fitting. When discussing issues of race and wealth, inequality creeps up pretty quickly. I found some great stats on international and domestic inequalities.

Domestic Inequalities
According to The Economist, between 2002 & 2005, American corporate profits rose by 60%, wage income by only 10%.

The top one percent of Americans now make more money than the bottom 40 percent. That’s roughly three million people out-earning 110 million.

Wealth differences along racial and ethnic lines are even more striking. A 6-to-1 gap between whites and African-Americans. 11-to-1 between whites and Latinos. It seems this analysis is shows a difference from our post the other day that showed Latinos consistently earning more than Blacks.

Global Inequalities
According to the UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) 2005 only 9 countries (4% of the world’s population) have reduced the wealth gap between rich and poor, whilst 80% of the world’s population have recorded an increase in wealth inequality. The report states that ‘the richest 50 individuals in the world have a combined income greater than that of the poorest 416 million. The 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day – 40% of the world’s population – receive only 5% of global income, while 54% of global income goes to the richest 10% of the world’s population.‘

‘The Inequality Predicament’, identifies non-economic aspects of global inequality (such as inequalities in health, education, employment, gender and opportunities for social and political participation), as causing and exacerbating poverty.

Food for thought!

Miel