Eight individuals, all of whom are men, have as much wealth as the poorest half of the population around the globe.
The wealth gap is wider than ever before, with data from China and India showing the poorest people in the world own less than had previously been thought.
Last year, nine people owned the same as 3.6 billion poor people, instead of the previous estimate of 62 people. What’s more, in 2010, it took the combined assets of the 43 richest people in the world to equal the wealth of half the poorest people in the world.
The super-rich have seen their wealth increase, on average, 11 percent annually since 2009. Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, for one example, has increased his fortune by 50 percent since announcing he was leaving Microsoft in 2006 — and that’s with Gates giving away a lot of his wealth.
Here are the numbers:
8 | The number of men who have as much wealth as half the world
9, 3.6 billion | Wage gap ratio last year
43, 1/2 | Wage gap ratio in 2010
11 percent | Average annual wealth increase of the super-rich since 2009
50 percent | Wealth increase Bill Gates has seen since 2006
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