EDMONTON, AB /Troy Media/ - What would it cost to eliminate poverty and ensure that each person on the planet enjoyed a 'living wage'; enough income to meet their basic needs for a descent and good life?
What is a living wage? A living wage is the income required to meet the basic needs for a reasonable good life of clean water, good air, good food, comfortable shelter, clothing and some healthy degree of autonomy.
Here are the facts:
• The current estimated global poverty line is $530 per year.
• In 2005, according to poverty facts, currently roughly 50 per cent of the world's people (over 3.2 billion) live on $1.45 per day ($530 per year) while 80 per cent (5.15 billion) live on $10/day or less.
• The poorest 40 per cent of the world's population accounts for five per cent of global income. The richest 20 per cent accounts for three-quarters of world income.
• The poorest 10 per cent accounted for just 0.5 per cent of all consumption while the wealthiest 10 per cent accounted for 59 per cent of all the consumption.
• About 0.13 per cent of the world's population controlled 25 per cent of the world's financial assets in 2004.
• A conservative estimate for 2010 is that at least a third of all private financial wealth, and nearly half of all offshore wealth, is now owned by world's richest 91,000 people – just 0.001 per cent of the world's population.
• The world's gross domestic product in 2006 was $48.2 trillion in 2006.
• The world's billionaires – just 497 people (approximately 0.000008 per cent of the world's population) – were worth $3.5 trillion (over 7 per cent of world GDP).
How much would this cost to eliminate poverty around the world (with 7.074 billion people and assuming the same distribution of poverty)?
To double the income level of the poorest 5.64 billion (80 per cent of the world's population) to $10/day would cost $29.39 billion per year. (I have not included people in the developed countries who may not earn $10/day).
That $29.39 billion is equivalent of 0.5 per cent of the total estimated wealth of the world's billionaires (according to Forbes latest wealth estimates).
– Mark Anielskiis a partner and co-founder of Genuine Wealth, a Canadian enterprise whose mission is to help businesses, communities and nations mature into flourishing economies and enterprises of wellbeing. He was a senior economic advisor to China between 2003 and 2006.