Income Disparity Growing Worldwide

07/11/2003

Income Disparity Growing Worldwide

"He who knows patience knows peace." - Chinese Proverb

INCOME DISPARITY GROWING WORLDWIDE

Jeff Gates, author of Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street from Wall Street (New York: Perseus Press, 2001), shared these statistics in the July 2003 issue of Utne Reader:

* Percentage of total income claimed by the richest 1% of Americans between 1983 and 1998: 47

* Percentage of total income claimed by the poorest 80% of American's between 1983 and 1998: 12

* Percentage of US net worth owned by African Americans in 1865: 5

* Percentage of US net worth owned by African Americans in 1990: 1

* Number of poeple worldwide who live on $2 a day or less: 3 billion

* Gap in income between the world's richest one-fifth and its poorest one-fifth in 1960: 30 - 1

* Gap in income between the world's richest one-fifth and its poorest one-fifth in 1998: 74 - 1

* Estimated amount required annually to provide for 'the minimal conditions required for the flowering of human potential worldwide,' according to the UN Development Program: $35 billion

* Percentage of the 2003 US defense budget $35 billion represents: 9

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