The study’s findings–published by the World Inequality Lab–also found that this wealth inequality in India has shown no signs of reduction in recent years. The richest 10% hold about 65% of the total wealth, and the top 1% about 40%, the report said.

In terms of income inequality, the top 10% of earners receive about 58% of national income, it said. The bottom 50% get only 15%. The income gap between the top 10% and the bottom 50% remained stable between 2014 and 2024, according to the report.

The average annual income in India was about 6,200 euros, or Rs 6.49 lakh approximately, per capita on a purchasing power parity basis. Purchasing power parity is an economic tool that compares the value of different currencies by measuring what the same amount of money can buy in different countries. The average wealth stands at about 28,000 euros on a purchasing power parity basis.

The female labour participation was “very low” at 15.7% and had shown no improvement over the past decade, the report said.

“Overall, inequality in India remains deeply entrenched across income, wealth and gender dimensions, highlighting persistent structural divides within the economy,” it added.

Inequality outlook for India. Source: World Inequality Report 2026

Global trends

Globally, wealth has reached historic highs, but remains, like India, “very unevenly distributed”, the report said. The report noted that the top 0.001%, which is fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires, owns three times more wealth than the entire bottom 50% of humans put together.

Within almost every region of the world, the top 1% alone hold more wealth than the bottom 90% combined, it added. The report added that the global financial system continues to be rigged in favour of the rich countries. Ricardo Gómez-Carrera, the lead author of the report, stated that inequality is “silent until it becomes scandalous”.

“This report gives voice to inequality – and to the billions of people whose opportunities are frustrated by today’s unequal social and economic structures,” Gómez-Carrera added.

The World Inequality Report was launched in 2018. Third edition, published on Wednesday, was released in the context of South Africa’s presidency of the Group of 20 in November, which highlighted two crises: the explosion of global inequalities and the weakening of multilateralism, the analysis said.

The report explores the new dimensions of inequality defining the 21st century, such as climate, gender inequalities, unequal access to human capital, asymmetries in the global financial system and territorial divides that are reshaping democracies.

Figure 2.7 provides a geographic breakdown of global income groups in 1980 and 2025, highlighting how the composition of top earners and other groups has shifted over time. In 1980, the global elite was overwhelmingly concentrated in North America & Oceania and Europe, which together accounted for most of the world’s top income groups. Latin America also had some presence near the top, but China and India were almost entirely confined to the bottom half of the distribution. At that time, China had virtually no presence among the global elite, while India, Asia in general, and Sub-Saharan Africa were heavily concentrated in the very lowest percentiles.

Interpretation. These graphs show the geographical breakdown of global income groups. Between 1980 and 2025, the global income distribution has shifted, with China gaining presence in the middle and upper−middle percentiles, while Europe and North America & Oceania’s dominance in top income groups has declined, but it is still large. In 1980, 1% of the world’s top 1% income group were Chinese residents. By 2025, this figure increased to 5%. This highlights the growing global share of China and the diversification of the global elite.

Sources and series: Chancel et al. (2022) and wir2026.wid.world/methodology.

Figure 2.9 turns to the middle 40%, often considered the backbone of the middle class. Here the contrasts are equally stark. In the most unequal settings, especially in Latin America and parts of Africa, the middle 40% receive as little as 23–35% of income, reflecting a fragile middle class. By contrast, in Europe and parts of North America & Oceania, this group’s share rises to 44–50%, making them central to national income distribution. Asia shows both ends of the spectrum: India’s middle 40% remains in the lower levels, while China’s earns a larger share.

Related:

One percent of Indians own 58% of country’s wealth: Oxfam inequality report

Journalist cannot cover the labour beat without questioning extreme inequality- P Sainath

Tax Justice proposal: what are leading economists proposing on Wealth Redistribution in India

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 The actions include submission of letters to government representatives — MLA, MP, counsellors (political leadership), DC or DM (with a copy to PM) in support of action against inequality, tweets to the PM with a common hashtag #Smashinequality requesting action on inequality, mobile action by SMSing SMASH [ART1] to 56263 to help fight inequality.

Actions planned include launch of the International Inequality report by Oxfam International, discussions on inequality as the World Economic Forum begins in Davos, followed by International Day on Education/National Girl Child Day on January 24.
WNTA concept note ahead of the campaign:

While India’s constitution commits to the principle of equality, some citizens of India are more equal than others. There are inequalities between the rich and the poor, between the genders, between the various social groups, between those with and without disabilities, between rural and urban areas and between the lived realities of those living in different states in India. This is manifested in a number of ways including access and relative quality of essential services like health and education, access and control over natural resources, taxation and banking systems, access to government planning spaces and justice among others.

Since we have grown in this unequal society, many accept inequality as inevitable. It is not. Inequality is a policy choice that governments make. A different, fairer and more equal India is possible.

Call for Action against Inequality: India 2019
We believe that a political approach is needed to fight inequality by making it a mass issue and a popular campaign, addressing the core perceptions that sustain inequality and building a culture of equality.  It involves challenging the policy choices that India has made in the previous years that privileges the rich over the poor and the fundamental economic model that sustains inequality and addressing the rising phenomena of crony capitalism and privatization. At the same time, this would entail recognizing that progress has been made in the preceding decades, but the reduction in poverty and growth of the national economy should not create a sense of complacency.

What it is
At this stage the actions and the specific messaging is to a large extent decentralized recognizing that the manifestations and face of inequality is different across the country. A central design and structure cannot be done at this time and it will also allow people across India to push their own issues in their own way. Consequently, the current convergence is around a call for action, not a campaign, alliance of network. Those that are part of the process would determine the shape it would eventually take.

The mobilization, if sustained over time, could grow into a national alliance with a federal character or a movement to change the system or a campaign or something else.

This call coincides with the Global Week of Action against Inequality that provides a hook to initiate coordinated action.  This is an effort to explore possibilities of synergized engagement on this issue across networks and alliances. A conscious effort will be made to bring young people and existing unions, networks and alliances into the process.

Irrespective, the intention would be to sustain the mobilization beyond the week of action. The effort would be to influence both the discourse and spaces where policy decisions are taken with equality as a focus. Three strands of work have been identified in the first few meetings of the process: addressing structural issues, immediate actionable issues/manifestations and building the public narrative (both building our own and countering the narrative that legitimizes inequality). In so doing, it is important to combine intellectual articulation with an actionable agenda.

For the time being this work will be largely informal. Oxfam India is only initiating the discussion/offering its Campaign Manager Inequality as a secretariat.

The 2019 Mobilization
The present mobilization has been timed to coincide with the Global Week of Action against inequality timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos. Action is anticipated in around 20 states including Delhi, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, TN, Kerala, Manipur, Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh, Telangana and UP – based on a common list of possible actions.

This includes common actions across the various states including:

• Offline: Submission of letters to government representatives- MLA, MP, Counsellors (political leadership), DC or DM (with copy to PM) in support of action against inequality
• Online: Tweet to the PM on the 19th with a common hashtag requesting action on inequality. The hastag for the event is #Smashinequality
• Mobile Action: SMS SMASH [ART1] to 56263 to help fight inequality. This will form a pool of supporters for the issue of inequality. This will then be shared with the government in support of action on the issue.

This is intended to be a decentralized mobilization and this is accompanied by an indicative menu of options for action. However, it would help if the Secretariat for the process (anjela@oxfamindia) is informed about the actions being planned.

Globally, the objective of the week are to disrupt the global conversations around Davos challenging corporate influence, elite capture and build the global movement against inequality. The focus of the 2019 mobilization is to help connect movement-building moments across the world in the excluded parts of cities such as Manilla, Jakarta, Delhi, Joburg, Nairobi, Tunis, Dakar, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, London and Washington DC, where urban communities hit by obscene inequality are organising to build their power and take it on – as powerful a visible demonstration of people’s collective mobilisation and organising to resist the unjust distribution of wealth and power.

Courtesy: https://counterview.org/
 

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The global economy enables a wealthy elite to accumulate vast fortunes while hundreds of millions of people struggle to survive on low wages, according to an Oxfam report. EPA/Mast Irham

Athia Yumna, a senior researcher at the SMERU Research Institute who specialises in inequality issues, spoke to one of the report’s authors, Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam International, to discuss the report’s key messages and explore its relevance to Indonesia.

Athia: So, this year’s report highlights the theme of work and how we fight increased inequality by encouraging decent work. Is that the main message?
Max: Yes, exactly right. We know from the experience of countries like Brazil, and now quite excitingly Korea as well, big increases in minimum wage can make a big difference to inequality.

There’s a great graph in the report, which we got from fantastic work done by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Asia. When you look at the compliance rate of minimum wage as well as that between women and men, there is a huge variation between countries and it is clear you need more investment in higher minimum wages and enforcement of minimum wage to make a big difference.

The other thing that really stuck with me in producing the report, was the human cost of these things. In Bangladesh, women workers don’t drink enough water in very hot conditions because they don’t want to go to the toilet [as they avoid toilet breaks to fulfil their work target], and it is quite common to have infection as a result. In the US, you have stories of poultry workers wearing diapers to work.

Athia: What is the aim of launching this report in Davos [at the World Economic Forum]?
Max: The main reason for launching this report around Davos is not because we think that the problems of the inequality crisis would be solved by the people of Davos. We think the inequality crisis ultimately will be solved by progressive politics and the power of ordinary people to demand change.

But by using the Davos event, where media focus on the richest people, the business and political leaders attending this meeting, and the world’s awareness of that, [there] is an opportunity to show that the problem is getting worse.

I think my favourite statistic in the report is that billionaire’s wealth is increasing six times faster than wages. It illustrates the thesis of Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital” – the idea that if wealth is consistently growing faster than income then your inequality crisis is getting worse.

Athia: What have we learned from past inequalities of the 19th and early 20th centuries? Is there any distinct characteristic between the past inequalities and what we face today?
Max: I think what’s clear is that inequality isn’t inevitable. History shows us it can be reduced in a peaceful way through progressive politics, or sadly, more often through war or serious conflict.

If you look at the progress, firstly in the US after the Great Depression and then in Europe straight after the second World War, and then if you look at the nature of growth in countries like Indonesia in the 1950’s to 1970’s, it was very inclusive.

But contrast that with the growth that we’re seeing today, again in Indonesia and elsewhere, where the majority of growth is going mostly to the top [income bracket]. History showed us that this [reducing inequality] is what the West did in the 1950s and 60s, Latin America has done it in the last 10 to 15 years and others are doing it as we speak.

Athia: What are the new policy recommendations in the report?
Max: I don’t think there is anything massively new because for a long time we’ve known what the right thing to do and we just need to see how come. So, there is element of repetition which can always come in.

I think what’s interesting in the report is some companies stop paying dividends to shareholders until they can show there is a living wage throughout their supply chain. We certainly have not seen that before.

Limiting the ratio between the highest and lowest paid employees is also interesting. We’re exploring new business models in which companies can operate in a way that aren’t making the problems worse.

We use the example of Mondragon, a big multinational company in Spain, that manages to pay its boss no more than nine times its lowest paid employees. There are examples of successful companies that operate in ways that reduce inequality rather than increasing it.

But, in terms of recommendations, it’s basically the same: The rich have to be taxed more and the poor need to be paid more.

Athia: What can Indonesia learn from other countries that have successfully progressed their tax policy?
Max: If we look at across the region, you’ve seen countries that are introducing good tax policies: inheritance tax in Thailand, it’s not perfect but it’s good to see; or property taxes implemented in Cambodia.

In 10 years time, I want to see great taxation and wealth and that can mean direct wealth taxation but it can also mean capital gains tax, property tax or inheritance tax. I think there is scope in doing that and various developing countries are already doing that.

Investing in collection is the first thing we can do. I think tripling the budget for tax enforcement and collection can also make a huge difference.

Athia: What’s your main suggestion for Indonesia to tackle inequality?
Max: I don’t think there is one country that offers a blueprint for any other country. Obviously, tax is incredibly important but I think in terms of Indonesia, the basic principle is that within next four to five years, the tax to GDP ratio could be increased by 4 to 5%, done as progressively as possible.

I think it’s quite reasonable. That additional revenue could double your health budget, have huge implications for public spending, and in turn, massively impact inequality.

Athia Yumna, Senior researcher, SMERU Research Institute

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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What’s the best way to measure it?

Most inequality studies have focused on income – measures of which are widely available. However, being rich is not about a single year of earnings but rather about the accumulation of wealth over time. In the past, quantifying that has been tricky.

The wealthy would probably prefer we stay in the dark about how rich they are, presumably to avoid the aforementioned riots. People like me who study the topic, however, are always looking for more data and better and more accurate ways to measure the rich-poor gap. And while I’m not one to promote violence in the streets, I do believe it’s important for citizens to be fully aware of the levels of disparity in their society.

The most revealing way to do this, in my view, is by looking at wealth inequality.

Chris Rock cited the free food, drinks and massages at the Virgin upper-class lounge at Heathrow Airport in his comments about inequality. Faruk Ateş, CC BY-NC

Measuring the rich-poor gap

There are several ways to measure inequality.

One of the most popular is by income. That’s largely because there’s more data, and it’s a lot easier to measure. But this measure is a snapshot.

Wealth, on the other hand, is an aggregation, affected not only by current income but earnings accumulated in previous years and by previous generations. Only by studying wealth inequality do scholars, policymakers and others get the deepest and broadest measure of the gap between the rich and everyone else.

How much wealth someone has is also a better measure of their quality of life and opportunities. It determines the ability to invest in education, financial assets and the comfort and security of one’s retirement. Wealth also mitigates worries about paycheck variability or unexpected expenses. If you have wealth, the sudden cost of replacing a broken water heater or paying a medical bill doesn’t cause nearly as much stress as if you’re poor.

Most of the gains from the recent tax package will accrue to the richest Americans. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
 

American ‘exceptionalism’

When we do look at the data on wealth inequality in the U.S., it’s stark and dwarfs that of the rest of the developed world.

The conservative Hudson Institute in 2017 reported that the wealthiest 5 percent of American households held 62.5 percent of all assets in the U.S. in 2013, up from 54.1 percent 30 years earlier. As a consequence, the wealth of the other 95 percent declined from 45.9 percent to 37.5 percent.

As a result, the median wealth of upper-income families (earning US$639,400 on average) was nearly seven times that of middle-income households ($96,500) in 2013, the widest gap in at least 30 years.

More notably, inequality scholars Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found that the top 0.01 percent controlled 22 percent of all wealth in 2012, up from just 7 percent in 1979.

If you only looked at data on income inequality, however, you’d see a different picture. In 2013, for example, the top 5 percent of households earned just 30 percent of all U.S. income (compared with possessing nearly 63 percent of all wealth).

While the U.S. is not the only developed country that has seen wealth inequality rise over the past three decades, it is an outlier. The wealthiest 5 percent of households in the U.S. have almost 91 times more wealth than the median American household, the widest gap among 18 of the world’s most developed countries. The next highest is the Netherlands, which has a ratio less than half that.
 

Lifting all boats?

The recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will make this problem a whole lot worse.

The main features of the law include doubling the standard deduction for individual taxpayers, a temporary reduction in the top marginal tax rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent, a significant reduction of the number of families subject to the estate tax and slashing the top corporate rate from 35 percent to 21 percent.

The main impact, however, is skewed to the wealthy. For example, the bottom 20 percent of households will see a lower tax bill of about $40 on average, compared with $5,420 for those in the top quintile. The richest 0.1 percent, meanwhile, will save $61,920. By 2025, the richest will see their benefit grow to $152,200, while everyone else won’t see much of a change. All the individual cuts are set to expire in 2026.

Wealthier taxpayers will also gain from the other main features of the new law. For example, research shows most benefits of lowering business taxes go to the rich, and fewer estates subject to the inheritance tax means more wealth accumulation across generations.

The tax law’s proponents claim that it won’t increase levels of inequality because the money that the rich will save will “trickle down” to other American households and lift their boats too.

Empirical evidence, however, suggests otherwise. Specifically, channeling more money to the rich, via tax cuts, does not improve economic growth, worsens educational opportunities for poorer Americans and even reduces life expectancy, which declined for a second year in a row in 2017.

How rich are the rich? Chris Rock knows. mpi04/MediaPunch/IPX
 

Let’s learn the facts

So is Chris Rock right that Americans just aren’t aware of the levels of disparity in their society?

Surveys suggest he is. Respondents to a 2011 national survey, for example, “dramatically underestimated” levels of wealth inequality in the U.S.

The survey, and other research, also partially affirmed the other half of his quote by showing that by and large Americans do care about wealth inequality and would prefer it to be lower.

Whether existing wealth inequality in the U.S. is socially or morally sustainable – or might lead to the riots envisioned by Chris Rock – is an open question.

Whatever happens, first things first, we need to know and understand just how bad wealth inequality in the U.S. has become. What we then choose to do about it is up to all of us.

Gil B. Manzon Jr., Associate Professor of Accounting, Boston College

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Findings on India in Oxfam Inequality report “Reward Work, Not Wealth”: 

India added 17 new billionaires last year, raising the number to 101 billionaires. Indian billionaires’ wealth increased by INR 4891 billion — from INR 15,778 billion to over INR 20,676 billion. INR 4891 billion is sufficient to finance 85 per cent of the all states’ budget on Health and Education.

73 percent of the wealth generated last year went to the richest one percent, while 67 crore Indians who comprise the poorest half of the population saw one percent increase in their wealth. In the last 12 months the wealth of this elite group increased by Rs 20,913 billion. This amount is equivalent to total budget of Central Government in 2017-18.

India’s top 10% of population holds 73% of the wealth. 37% of India’s billionaires have inherited (family) wealth. They control 51 per cent of the total wealth of billionaires in the country. Only four women billionaires in India and three of them inherited family wealth. Between 2018 till 2022, India is estimated to produce 70 new millionaires every day. Number of billionaires has increased from only 9 in 2000 to 101 in 2017.

51 billionaires out of the total 101 are 65 years or above and own Rs 10,544 billion of total wealth. If we assume that in the next 20 years, at least Rs 10,544 billion will be passed on to the inheritors and on that if 30% inheritance tax is imposed, the Government can earn at least Rs 3176 billion.

Rs 3176 billion sufficient to finance 6 crucial services–Medical & Public Health, Family Welfare, Water & Sanitation, Housing, Urban Development and Labour & Labour Welfare in all States. Over the next 20 years, 500 of the world’s richest people will hand over $2.4 trillion to their heirs – a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people.

In countries like India and the Philippines, at least one in every two workers in the garment sector are paid below the minimum wage. It would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year.

It would take around 17.5 days for the best paid executive at a top Indian garment company to earn what a minimum wage worker in rural India will earn in their lifetime (presuming 50 years at work).

It would cost around Rs 326 million a year to ensure 14,764 minimum wage workers in rural India were paid a living wage. This is about half the amount paid out to wealth shareholders of a top Indian garment company.

Results of Oxfam Survey 

New research by Oxfam seeks to understand perceptions of inequality and support for redistribution policy options.137 Over 70,000 people were surveyed in 10 countries across five continents, representing over one-quarter of the world’s population and more than a third of the world’s GDP. These online surveys collected data from nationally representative samples in the United States, India, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Morocco, the Netherlands and Denmark.

In India, specifically among people who think they are poor, seeing where they actually sit in the national income distribution resulted in almost 15% more respondents agreeing it is difficult for a person to increase the amount of money they have despite working hard. 84% Indians agree or strongly agree that the gap between the rich and poor in [country] is too large.

In terms of attitudes and beliefs about inequality, nearly two-thirds of all respondents think the gap between the rich and the poor needs to be addressed urgently or very urgently. And many have an even stronger sense of urgency: 73% in India, 79%in South Africa, 85% in Nigeria, and 93% in Mexico believe this.

There is also strong support for increasing the tax rate for the top 1% of income earners. When asked whether government deficits should be reduced by cutting public services or by increasing taxes on the 1%, over half of respondents selected higher taxes for the 1%. 52% Indians agree that income taxes on the richest 1% of people should be increased.

When respondents were asked to choose specific policy options to be put in place to tackle inequality, in nine out of the 10 countries, the four most selected options across countries were: 1) provide free and high-quality education and medical care; 2) fight corruption; 3) raise the minimum wage; and 4) provide jobs with decent wages.
 

Recommendations

Oxfam India is calling upon the Indian Government to act on growing inequality ans create an equal India. Following are the recommendations:
 

• Promote inclusive growth by ensuring that the income of the bottom 40% of the population grows faster than of the top 10% so that the gap between the two begins to close.  This can be done by encouraging labour-intensive sectors that will create more jobs; investing in agriculture; and effectively implementing the social protection schemes that exist.
• Seal the leaking wealth bucket by taking stringent measures against tax evasion and avoidance; taxing the super-rich by re-introducing inheritance tax, increasing wealth tax, reducing and eventually do away with corporate tax breaks; creating a more equal opportunity country by increasing public expenditure on health and education.
• Bring data transparency, produce and make available high quality data on income and wealth. Regularly monitor the measures the government takes to tackle the issue of rising inequality.

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