Oxfam’s new report looks at growing extreme wealth, focusing on those who work but live in poverty. It explores why this may be happening, and gives recommendations on how it can be fixed.

The survey undertaken as part of the report shows that a majority of people want to live in far more equal societies: more than half of the 70,000 people surveyed wanted lower levels of inequality in their country than currently exist in any country in the world.

Oxfam asserts that, despite growing political and business discourse about the need to reduce inequality, many leaders are actively promoting policies which could in fact increase it –for instance, through the rise in temporary employment and precarious work conditions in both emerging and industrialised economies. It also finds that income inequality, poverty and gender are strongly interconnected, and that current global levels of extreme inequality cannot solely be explained through innovation, hard work or talent; rather, monopoly power, inheritance, and cronyism play a significant role.

The organisation concludes that both governments and corporations can support transformational change towards a more human economy, and provides recommendations within two main pathways for action: designing economies to be more equal from the start, and using taxation and public spending to redistribute and create greater fairness.

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