What if the World's Wealthiest Gave Away Their Fortunes to the Poorest?

公開：
エクスポート アーカイブの表示

Every poor person in the United States would get a one-time payout of $1,736 if Bill Gates—the richest US citizen—distributed the total value of his assets equally among the US population living below the poverty line. This data is based on analysis from the Robin Hood Index, created by Bloomberg, which compares the net worth of the richest billionaires in 42 countries with the number of individuals below the national poverty line in those same countries to show the theoretical gain to the poor from the distribution of each country's wealthiest citizen.

  • According to the most recent index, the poor of Cyprus, Sweden and Taiwan would stand to gain the most from the distribution of the assets of their richest compatriots. Every poor person would gain $45,987, $33,149, and $26,957, respectively, sums that would last a person living on $1.9 a day in the range of 39 to 66 years.
  • Payout of the wealthiest individual's assests in India, the second most populous country in the world, would be the smallest of any of the countries captured in the Robin Hood Index.

The size of the windfalls in the top ranked countries are unsurprising given the small populations and relatively high living standards of these countries. Cyprus, Sweden, and Taiwan are each in the top 30 countries by GDP per capita. In sharp contrast, with about 20 percent of the population of India living in poverty, the $19.2 billion net worth of the richest Indian would amount to only $59 per poor person in India, or approximately one month at $1.9 per day.

The Robin Hood Index represents just one of many methods to help us to understand how unequally the world's wealth is distributed. A wide range of statistical measures exist to support analysis of income inequality. Following are three examples:

  1. According to Oxfam, 85 of the world's richest people have a combined wealth that is nearly equal to the wealth of the 3.5 billion people belonging to the bottom 50 percent population of the world by income.
  2. The World Top Incomes Database shows that the ultra-wealthy in the United States are the most powerful in the world. A mere 0.01 percent of the US population holds about 3 percent of the US’ national wealth.
  3. One could also compare the wealth of the world's richest people to national GDPs to analyze income distribution. Based on the Forbes World's Billionaires list, the combined wealth of world’s 1,810 billionaires—only 0.00002% of the total global population—equals 9 percent of the world's GDP.

Knoemaの関連分析データ

Basic Income: A Way Out of Poverty in a Time of Pandemic or Utopia

(23 September 2020) Sir Thomas More introduced the concept of basic income* in Utopia back in 1516. It's a simple concept: Eliminate poverty by guaranteeing a basic level of income. The New Jersey Income Maintenance Experiment (1968-1972) was the first basic income experiment and has since been followed by more than 40 experiments across 14 countries, including 16 ongoing, and another 5 experiments planned for 2020 or later. From an experimental perspective with small groups of participants (as opposed to whole economies), the data demonstrates that basic income helps to eradicate...

Bill Gates Net Worth is Bigger than GDP of 130 Countries

According to the 2019 Forbes Billionaires List, the aggregate wealth of the world's 1,810 billionaires is approximately $8.9 trillion, exceeding the GDP of Japan, the world's third-largest economy with a GDP of $4.4 trillion. In other words, the wealth of 0.00002% of the world's population accounts for 9 percent of the world's GDP of about $74 trillion. How do we measure the net worth of a billionaire? The estimate is based on total asset value, including stakes in public and private companies, real estate, yachts, art, and cash. If a person were a country, we'd measure GDP, which...

Chile's Socio-Economic Disparities Exposed by Weeks of Protests

A policy decision to increase public transport fares in Chile earlier this month triggered nearly two weeks of mass protests across Chile's largest cities, including the capital city of Santiago. While Chilean President Sebastián Piñera last week announced economic reforms to bring peace to the country - raising pensions, monthly minimum wages, and taxes on the wealthy - the socio-economic deficits of the country have been exposed and the youth mobilized. Prosperity for Chile is real and measurable ... At the end of the 20th century, Chile carried out radical economic reforms....

Inequality of Global Wealth

In 2016, just 1 percent of the world's population owned more than 50 percent of the world's wealth. According to the data from the Credit Suisse Research Institute, inequlity of world wealth continues to grow every year. The Institute's assessment is based on a global analysis of national wealth—defined as the value of the financial assets plus real estate (housing) owned by the households, less their debts—and use of the Gini Index, a traditional measure of income distribution and, thereby, inequality. As noted in the Institute’s report: About 3.5 billion people—or, 73 percent of...