Global crisis feeds income gap - OECD

The global economic crisis worsened income inequality in the world’s leading economies substantially,and there is a growing risk that the most vulnerable will be hit harder still, the OECD warned yesterday.

The global economic crisis has “has squeezed incomes from work and capital in most countries,” a report based on the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development’s income distribution database said.

It found that income inequality had increased by more over the three-year period from 2008 to 2010 than during the previous 12 years for the 34-nation group as a whole, when the mitigating effects of the welfare benefits were excluded.

“After taxes and transfers, the richest 10 percent of the population in OECD countries earned 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10 percent in 2010, up from 9 times in 2007,” the report said.


/HurriyetDailynews.Com/