https://wsj.com/articles/oxfams-inequality-report-obscures-how-l…
Oxfam’s work has other flaws. By focusing only on the five richest men, it ignores the 24 billionaires who fell off Forbes’s famous list after losing a combined $43 billion between 2022 and 2023. In addition, the report fails to mention that the total number of dollar millionaires fell by 3.5 million last year, without even taking inflation into account. Absurdly, as Max Ghenis of PolicyEngine has pointed out, Oxfam calculates the rise in wealth of the five superrich from March 18, 2020, the low point of the Covid crash, while the group measures the decline for the five billion poor from 2019, before the downturn.
You wouldn’t learn it from Oxfam, but the global Gini coefficient measuring inequality has fallen from 92 to 88 since 2000. The top 1% saw their share of global income cut from 49% to 44.5%.
More important, the world’s poorest five billion have become significantly richer. The Oxfam report makes it seem as if things have gotten much worse for the poor since the pandemic. Oxfam makes this claim five times in its report, but never says by how much. It turns out that the poor’s share of global wealth—as measured by assets minus debts—declined by 0.2%, a figure so small that it is within the margin of error.
Something else you won’t find in the Oxfam report: Global poverty is now at its lowest level ever recorded—8.6%, down from 29% in 2000.
@R3d1strictingVultureGreen5mos5MO
Brookings Institution data shows the exact opposite of Oxfam.
Oxfam also fails to divide wealth levels by the amount of effort put into capturing earnings with which to feed, cloth and house oneself. For decades our urban socialist enclaves put nothing into the denominator yet receive endless transfer payment wealth from the numerator.
The effort-adjusted wealth comparison shows no wealth inequality.
@9CJ6CB65mos5MO
That’s just hilariously false, billionaires didn’t “work” to make their money, no one “works” for 100 million let alone over 200 billion in unrealized gains. You clearly don’t understand the term “socialist” either.
I question all the do goodery institutions.
There is every incentive to not achieve your goal, when so many 6 figure plus salaries are involved, let alone all the social opportunities and celebrity worship the fundraising events provide.
Show me one organization raking in money like these organizations are, that has ever said "mission accomplished, thank you for your help but we conquered (issue), and we no longer need your money"
@AmusedV0terConstitution5mos5MO
People who complete high school, get married and then have children have the best chance to improve their lives. But the left's constant nanny state does just the opposite, it encourages single family parenting with no father in the home, and the mother always on welfare from the state. Progressivism ALWAYS ruins whatever they touch, no exceptions.
@AntelopePhilLibertarian5mos5MO
Inequality is kind of the basis for natural selection, so it has existed since life began.
South Park had a great episode about inequality. Kyle is asking his dad why they have more money than his friends. His dad answers “well that’s because I went to law school and became a lawyer. Your friend Kenny’s mom is a crack w$&*^%. One job pays more.”
Thomas Sowell explains these things to the mind. South Park aims for the id.
@ISIDEWITH5mos5MO
