World Wealth Distribution in 5 Charts

I cried very hard when Ezra Klein left the Washington Post. I think his most influential article was this one:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/22/10-startling-facts-about-global-wealth-inequality/

Klein brought my attention to something startling. He cited a report from Oxfam International published in January that indicated that the top richest 80 people in the world have amassed the same amount of wealth over their lifetimes as the poorest 3.5 billion.

It gets even more astonishing, though. Klein quotes Oxfam: "Our estimates suggest that the lower half of the global population possesses barely 1% of global wealth, while the richest 10% of adults own 86% of all wealth, and the top 1% account for 46% of the total. "

Think about that for a second. The number of people living in your neighborhood are richer than the number of people living here:


Dylan Matthews, another excellent writer for WP, composed one of my other favorite articles: "40 Charts that Explain the World." You can find it here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/15/40-charts-that-explain-the-world/

These few graphs also show exactly how far the discrepancy reaches.

The share of wealth going to laborers is also waning as more goes to investors.

Energy consumption in China is also increasing as their economic productivity also increases.


I'll let you click the link and browse the other 37 graphs and charts. It's well worth your time. For now, though, the growing disparity between rich and poor is something to think about.