Another rich report

It is with monotonous regularity that wealth reports confirm that the rich are getting richer.

In Britain today, “the gap between rich and poor is higher now than it has been since the 1860s”.

Income inequality has increased in nearly all regions of the world over the past four decades, according to the World Inequality Report 2018. Since 1980, the global top 1 percent of earners has experienced twice as much of the global growth as have the poorest 50 percent.

The poorest half of the global population has seen its income grow significantly thanks to high growth in Asia. But the top 0.1% has captured as much growth as the bottom half of the world adult population since 1980.

Notably, Europe and the United States have seen a significant divergence from their relatively equal positions some 30 years ago. While the top 1 percent held close to 10 percent of the wealth in both regions in 1980, by the year 2016 this share had doubled to 20 percent in the United States while Europe saw only a slight increase to 12 percent.