International Inequality - Further Facts

Further Facts

Wealth:

• 6% of the world population own 52% of the global assets. The richest 2% of the world population own more than 51% of the global assets, the richest 10% own 85% of the global assets.
• 50% of the world population own less than 1% of the global assets.
• The whole global assets volume is about 125 trillion US$.
• 1,125 Dollar-Billionaires own 4.4 trillion US$. They own 4 times more than the 50% poor people of the world.
• over 80% of the world population lives on less than 10 US$/day.; over 50% of the world population lives on less than 2 US$/day; over 20% of the world population lives on less than 1.25 US$/day

Income:

• In 2005, 43% of the world population (3.14 billion people) have an income of less than U.S. $2.5/day. 21.5% of the world population (1.4 billion people) have an income of less than US$1.25/day.
• In 1981, 60.4% of the world population (2.73 billion people) had an income of less than US$ 2.5/day and 42.2% of the world population (1.91 billion people) had an income of less than US$ 1.25 /day. But first of all these improvements were reached in China. In all other developing countries only the percents decreased (by the swelling world population) but the absolute numbers increased.
• In 2008, 17% of the people in the developing countries are on the verge of starvation.
• The proportion of poor people (with less than US$ 3,470 per year) is 78%. The proportion of rich people (with more than US$ 8,000/year) is 11%.

Welfare spending: If East Asia and southern Latin American countries are taken out of the equation, the differences in government spending between the industrialized and developing states are striking, with the latter registering extremely low levels of spending.

• Social expenditure as a proportion for GDP for Indonesia or the Dominican Republic registers around the 2-3 per cent mark, compared to Sweden or France which at the moment hover just under the 30 per cent mark.
• In contrast to the industrialized states, from 1980 to 1990 many southern states experienced a decline in social spending as a percentage of overall government spending.

Therefore, in contrast to the North, the developing states are far more vulnerable to the pressures arising from economic globalization. Overall, social spending is far lower in the South, with some regions registering just a few per cent of GDP. However, some people argue that decrease in welfare spending is not an issue of global inequality but rather a common phenomenon in an era of globalization.