Economic Inequality: Ignore at Our Peril

In a post from 2011, The Gini’s Out of the Bottle, we looked at the consequences of a shrinking middle-class for business. This issue continues today with even greater force and urgency as we have seen around the world over the past year.

While many people have been lifted out of poverty around the world, the gap between the wealthiest and the rest continues to grow globally. For example a UNICEF Report titled Global Inequality: Beyond the Bottom Billion, highlights the long-term growth in inequality (note: 1.0 represents total inequality where 1 person holds all the wealth).

Oxfam, in a report in January 2015, projected that by 2016 “the combined wealth of the richest 1 per cent will overtake that of the other 99 per cent of people.”