Even very poor people engage in economic exchanges, but they have very little to bargain with. Wold-wide economic inequality is a devastating global justice issue, and it should therefore be included into any serious consideration of business ethics. How can the system be fair if 30 to 40% of the world's total population does not even have the chance to participate in the advances of modern society?
The World Bank defines as extreme poverty when someone lives on $1.25 a day or less. According to this measure, 22 percent of the world's population count as extremely poor. This group is spread out across 131 countries, mostly Africa and Asia. This means that currently close to 1.6 Billion people worldwide live on less than $460 per year. If the threshold is extended to$2 per day, a total of 34 percent of the world population, or one in three, lives in poverty, which means they have around $720 income per year, or less.
Here are some more alarming numbers, compiled with sources on the website Globalissues.org:
At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. (Source1)
The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income. (Source3)
In 2013, there are 2.2 billion children worldwide, and half of them, more than 1 billion, live in extreme poverty.
1.6 billion people — a quarter of humanity — live without electricity.
A conservative estimate for 2010 finds 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% of the world’s population.
The next 51 percent of all wealth is owned by the next 8.4 million — just 0.14% of the world’s population. Almost all of it has managed to avoid all income and estate taxes, either by the countries where it has been invested and or where it comes from. (Source)
This last statistics is particularly interesting, because it shows the historical trend. (Source) The distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:
3 to 1 in 1820
11 to 1 in 1913
35 to 1 in 1950
44 to 1 in 1973
72 to 1 in 1992