Discover 3 opportunities in income

Inequality is rampant, we hardly need telling. Rarely does the print media pass up an opportunity to remind us. We stand inundated by an endless stream of statistics – on scales barely fathomable – each one more depressing than the last. For instance, it’s widely known that: ‘8% of humanity takes home 50% of global income’; that ‘the top 1% own 45% of the world’s wealth’; and how could we forget that ‘the 26 richest people on earth had the same net worth as the poorest half’. As shocking as these stats once were, they’re now dishearteningly familiar; we can recite them unassisted; we are numb to them.

There exist two sides to every argument; in this one we have on one side a utopian world where everyone is equal and on the other a world where inhabitants don’t want to share what they’ve earned (presumably) by persistence and hard work with others and keep it for themselves. Herein lie the issues of inequality and the question of welfare and income redistribution. There are debates at every level of society, government and especially amongst economists as to where this problem comes from and how to tackle it.