Politicians and business leaders gathering in the Swiss Alps this week face an increasingly divided world, with the poor falling further behind the super-rich and political fissures in the United States, Europe and the Middle East running deeper than at any time in decades.
Just 62 people, 53 of them men, own as much wealth as the poorest half of the entire world population–or 3.6 billion people–according to a report released by anti-poverty charity Oxfam, CNBC reported.
And the richest 1% own more than the other 99% put together.
Significantly, the wealth gap is widening faster than anyone anticipated, with the 1% overtaking the rest one year earlier than Oxfam had predicted only a year ago.
In 2010 it took 388 super-rich individuals to equal the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population. While this number has fallen to just 62 individuals, the amount of “wealth” held by the poorest half has shrunk by $1 trillion in the same period, the charity calculated.
Rising inequality and a widening trust gap between people and their political leaders are big challenges for the global elite as they converge on Davos for the annual World Economic Forum, which runs from Jan. 20 to 23.
