Income inequality continues to grow in India amid COVID-19, says Oxfam report
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Backstory
- Wealth around the world has surged during the pandemic. Things like crypto to commodities to stocks all saw their value jump (some to record-highs) during this period.
- Also, during this time, though, income inequality has been exacerbated.
- According to the Bloomberg Billionaires List, the world’s 500 wealthiest people added more than US$1 trillion to their net worths last year.
The development
- Revealing the increasing inequality worldwide, the Oxfam Davos report of 2022 showed that India added 40 more billionaires to its ranks, arriving at a total of 142 last year.
- This wealthy group has a combined fortune of around US$720 billion, which is worth more than 40% of the country’s population (about 1.3 billion). In addition, the report stated that the country now has more billionaires than France, Sweden and Switzerland combined.
- The report showed that while specific policies helped make the wealthy even wealthier, the national minimum wage has stayed at 178 rupees per day since 2020, which is about US$2.50. In 2020, the number of poor in the south Asian nation doubled to 134 million.
- “Unfortunately, not only has the taxation policy of the Indian government been pro-rich, it has also deprived India’s States of important fiscal resources — both particularly damaging in the context of the Covid-19 crisis," the report stated.
- The group urged the Indian government to revisit its policies to redistribute wealth.
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