The gap between rich and poor is getting bigger in the world’s richest countries — and particularly the US — as children and low-skilled workers slide deeper into poverty, according to a 30-nation report released yesterday.
In a 20-year study of its 30 member countries, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said children and young adults are 25 percent more likely to be poor than the population average — with an even larger gap for single-parent families.
The US has the highest inequality and poverty in the OECD after Mexico and Turkey, and the gap has increased rapidly since 2000, the report said. Meanwhile, France has seen inequalities fall in the past 20 years as poorer workers are better paid.
At the same time, retiree poverty has fallen in many countries, the report said.
OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria urged governments to address the “divisive” issue of growing inequality. He said they should do more to educate the whole work force — and not just the elite — while helping people join the work force and boosting incomes for working families, rather than relying on social benefits.
“Greater income inequality stifles upward mobility between generations, making it harder for talented and hard-working people to get the rewards they deserve,” he said in a statement. “It polarizes societies, it divides regions within countries and it carves up the world between rich and poor.”
Efforts by governments to curb poverty by redistributing wealth through social policies are becoming less effective as low-skilled workers find it ever harder to find work, the report said.
The report covers 1985 to 2005, but the trends it highlights are valid through today, the OECD said.
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