22, Jan 2018 | CJP Team

An Oxfam survey found that the wealthiest 1% in India received 73% of the wealth that was created in the country in 2017, according to BloombergQuint. Meanwhile, the wealth of 67 crore Indians making up the country’s poorest half increased by just 1%. Worldwide, 82% of the wealth created in 2017 went to the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population. Moreover, the 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world’s population did not see any rise in their wealth. According to the Oxfam study, it would take a minimum wage worker in rural India 941 years to make the amount a top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company makes in a single year. In the United States, a CEO makes what an ordinary worker earns in one year in just over one day. According to Oxfam there are some major reasons for increasing returns of shareholders and corporate executives at the expense of workers’ wages and conditions; these include deteriorated workers’ rights along with unchecked corporate influence on government policy and the push to cut costs so as to maximise shareholders’ returns.