extreme inequality

The World Bank is forecasting that, for the first time ever, the number of people living in extreme poverty will fall under 10% of the world's population, to around 702 million people.

Rising inequality poses a dire threat to continued prosperity in Asia, where an estimated 500 million people remain trapped in extreme poverty, most of them women and girls.

Global wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small wealthy elite. This briefing explains Oxfam’s methodology and data sources and updates key inequality statistics.

Rising inequality could set the fight against poverty back by decades, Oxfam warned today as it published a new report showing that the number of billionaires worldwide has more than doubled since the financial crisis.