3.2 KiB
3.2 KiB
Wealth Inequality
Inequality is rising and concentrating wealth at the top of the wealthy class, which contributes to worse economic mobility
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- Eighty two percent of the wealth generated in 2017 went to the richest one percent of the global population (Oxfam 2018)
- The 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world saw no increase in their wealth in 2017.
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Madsen 16 (related article by study contributor)
- Looks at savings, investments, education, and knowledge production in 21 OECD countries spanning 142 years
- Finds that wealth inequality can negatively impact growth, but that this can be offset in certain states of financial development, usually in which people have access to the money or credit needed to move up
- Serves better as a counter to extreme wealth inequality than it does to wealth inequality in general - good for defending social safety nets, as those help reduce extreme inequality
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- Literature review of wealth inequality in relation to health
- Finds that there is strong evidence of wealth inequality having a causal relation to worse health
- This relation is especially strong in countries with significant wealth inequality
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- Discusses trends in wealth inequality and social mobility
- Finds a large body of evidence that suggests that wealth inequality is worse for economic mobility, and that increased wealth inequality can diminish the impact of hard work relative to the reward for such work
- “Inequality lowers mobility because it shapes opportunity. It heightens the income consequences of innate differences between individuals; it also changes opportunities, incentives, and institutions that form, develop, and transmit characteristics and skills valued in the labor market; and it shifts the balance of power so that some groups are in a position to structure policies or otherwise support their children’s achievement independent of talent.”
