An eyebrow raising statistic

Annually, Oxfam, in conjunction with Forbes magazine and its global rich list, publishes a report on how many of the world’s wealthiest are needed to match the wealth of the bottom half of the planet. In recent years, as market values have soared and wealth has concentrated evermore increasingly, the number has shrunk from 80 wealthiest in 2015 to just eight men holding the same wealth as the bottom 3.6 billion people in 2017.

Recently, researchers from the Institute for Policy Studies refined the statistics to reflect the U.S. alone. Their conclusions were eyebrow raising:

It can be hard to grasp just how much money is concentrated in just a few hands in our lopsided economy today. But here’s a start: The richest three people in the United States — Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — together have more wealth than the entire bottom half of the country combined.

To put an even finer point on it: That’s three people versus about 160 million people.

To really comprehend just how insane the wealth concentration has become, consider Bezos, the head of Amazon. Worth about $90 billion, he recently was declared the richest man in the world. In October alone, his wealth jumped by $10 billion — or about $4 million per second.

The authors made a particular point that the wealthiest of the group, Jeff Bezos, pays some of his warehouse workers as little as $12.84 an hour.

The report initially appeared in the Los Angeles Times, and more information can be found on the IPS website.