Wealth gap keeps widening

A CHIEF executive at a top global fashion brand has to only work for four days to earn what a garment worker in Bangladesh(孟加拉國) will earn in an entire lifetime, campaigning group Oxfam International (國際樂施會) says. In the run-up to the World Economic Forum(世界經濟論壇) in Switzerland (瑞士), Oxfam has sought to put inequality at the heart of the week’s deliberations of the rich and powerful.
“The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system,” said Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam International’s executive director. “The people who make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food are being exploited to ensure a steady supply of cheap goods, and swell the profits of corporations and billionaire investors.”
In its report Reward Work, Not Wealth, Oxfam says 82 percent of the wealth generated last year went to the richest 1 percent of the global population while the poorest half of the planet – 3.7 billion people – saw no increase in their wealth. The number of billionaires rose at an astonishing rate of one every two days between March 2016 and 2017.
Oxfam urged governments to take action by limiting returns to shareholders and top executives, ensuring workers receive a minimum ‘living wage’ and pushing through policies to eliminate the gender pay gap and protect the rights of women workers.

(This article is published on Student Standard on 29 January 2018)

Five shocking facts about extreme global inequality and how to even it up
https://goo.gl/CHYx8Z

Commission on Poverty
https:// goo.gl/iXqEkD