The world can no longer afford two things:
🔸the costs of economic inequality;
🔸and the rich.
Between 2020 and 2022, the world’s most affluent 1% of people captured nearly twice as much of the new global wealth created as did the other 99% of individuals put together
And in 2019 they emitted as much #carbon #dioxide as the poorest two-thirds of humanity.
In the decade to 2022, the world’s billionaires more than doubled their wealth, to almost US$12 trillion.
The evidence gathered by social epidemiologists, including us, shows that large differences in income are a powerful #social #stressor that is increasingly rendering societies dysfunctional.
For example, bigger gaps between rich and poor are accompanied by higher rates of #homicide and #imprisonment.
They also correspond to more #infant #mortality, #obesity, #drug #abuse and @COVID-19 #deaths, as well as higher rates of teenage pregnancy and lower levels of child well-being, social mobility and public trust
The #homicide rate in the United States
— the most unequal Western democracy
— is more than 11 times that in Norway (see go.nature.com/49fuujr).
#Imprisonment rates are ten times as high, and infant mortality and obesity rates twice as high.
These problems don’t just hit the poorest individuals, although the poorest are most badly affected.
Even #affluent people would enjoy a better quality of life if they lived in a country with a more equal distribution of wealth, similar to a Scandinavian nation.
They might see improvements in their mental health and have a reduced chance of becoming victims of violence; their children might do better at school and be less likely to take dangerous drugs.
The costs of inequality are also excruciatingly high for #governments.
For example, the Equality Trust, a charity based in London (of which we are patrons and co-founders), estimated that the United Kingdom alone could save more than ÂŁ100 billion ($126 billion) per year if it reduced its inequalities to the average of those in the five countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that have the smallest income differentials
— Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands5.
And that is considering just four areas: greater number of years lived in full health, better mental health, reduced homicide rates and lower imprisonment rates.
Many commentators have drawn attention to the environmental need to limit economic growth and instead prioritize sustainability and well-being.
Here we argue that tackling inequality is the foremost task of that transformation.
Greater @equality will reduce unhealthy and excess consumption, and will increase the #solidarity and #cohesion that are needed to make societies more adaptable in the face of climate and other emergencies.
