Disparity, or Should It Be Depravity?
The richest 1% of the global population currently owns nearly two-thirds of all new wealth created since 2020. This staggering accumulation amounts to $42 trillion, which is almost twice as much as the combined wealth of the bottom 99% of the world’s population. Globally, the poorest of the poor total more than 800 million.
Rihanna attends the Met Gala on May 4, 2015, in New York City. She donned a canary yellow cape gown designed by Chinese couturier Guo Pei and weighing about 55 pounds and costing around $50,000. Rihanna is a singer, businesswoman, and actress, one of the most prominent recording artists of the 21st century. Rihanna is the world's wealthiest female musician with an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion.
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According to a 2022 report, 72 percent of Cubans live below the poverty line. 21 percent of Cubans below the poverty line frequently go without breakfast, lunch or dinner due to a lack of money.
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Florence Pugh is an English actress. She is known for her dress sense, with publications such as Harper's Bazaar and British Vogue calling her fashion choices "bold", "daring" and "unique". At a Valentino show in 2022, she wore a sheer pink gown, which led to some backlash as it showed her nipples. Her net worth is estimated to be $8 million.
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A very young Somalian boy starving to death. Somalia is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Nearly 70% of the population live below the international poverty line (defined as earning less than $2.15 a day). Estimated per capita GDP is $284. Around 1.8 million children are acutely malnourished.
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Tom Brady is an American retired professional football quarterback, spokesman, and entrepreneur who has a net worth of $300 million. That is a separate net worth from his former wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen who has a $400 million fortune of her own.They purchased this luxurious home in Los Angeles for $20 million. According to Huff Post, it’s 22,000 square feet and has eight bedrooms, a 6-car garage, an elevator, a pool, spa, nursery, weight room, and wine cellar.
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Haitian children play in the slum of Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Haitian people are among the poorest of the poor. Nearly five million are acutely hungry, according to UNICEF. Adding to the dire situation is a resurgent cholera epidemic.
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Larry Ellison is an American businessman and entrepreneur who cofounded software company Oracle Corporation. With a net worth of over $80.1 billion, he is one of the wealthiest people in the world. He doesn’t own just one private jet — he owns several. He once owned the Rising Sun — a 453 feet long yacht that was the 12th largest yacht in the world. Ellison bought 98 percent of Lanai, a Hawaiian island, for $42.9 million.
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Ayisha, 10, rests on her small bucket of metals that she scavenged at a burn site for e-waste in Accra, Ghana. She will weigh and recycle the metals for money. Along with other children, she works at breaking down and extracting the precious metals from old computers with her bare hands and magnets. With no environmental regulations, no one wears a mask or protective clothing at the site. Ayisha lives in Old Fatima (a suburb of Accra) with a group of children who have no parents and no education.
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Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are worth more than $100 billion. In 2005, Page bought a $7.2 million home in Old Palo Alto. He bought a 3,457-square-foot penthouse there for $8.5 million in 2008. Both of them own super yachts. They also have an $82 million private airport.
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Rudra, 5, and his sister Suhani, 3, search for tea to drink at the Charan slum settlement in Dharamsala, India, where they live with their family. Two of their siblings recently died of malnutrition.
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Kim Kardashian is an American media personality, socialite, actress, and businesswoman. Her net worth is an estimated $1.7 billion. Expensive things she and her once husband, Kanye West, have purchased include an Aston Martin DB9 ($200,000), a Rolls Royce Phantom ($407,000), a 2017 Bahamas Vacation ($440,000), four gold-plated toilet seats ($750,000), a Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 ($750,000), just over $1 million on six Savoir Royal State beds, and a Swarovski crystals encrusted fridge ($1 million). For $21.5 million, the couple fixed up and purchased a French Country-style mansion in Bel Air. It’s 9,000 square feet and has five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and an elevator.
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Poverty is impacting more than 90% of Afghanistan's population half of whom live below the poverty line; per capita GDP is $2,802. Increasing hunger, natural disasters, unemployment, a banking and liquidity crisis, rights-violating restrictions on women and girls, and the lack of a functioning economy mean Afghans are facing a multitude of simultaneous crises. Currently, 40% of the country’s population are facing acute food insecurity—the fourth highest figure in the world. People are forced to make impossible choices to put food on the table, and children are at particularly increased risk of starvation, malnutrition and hunger, and preventable diseases.
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Vladimir Putin’s secret palace is located near the coastal town of Gelendzhik on the Black Sea in southern Russia. The palace sits on roughly 170 acres and is worth an estimated $1.4 billion. It has three modern-style houses, two helicopter pads, several yacht piers, a trout farm, and a farm with cows for the production of marble beef, as well as a vast marble swimming pool decorated with busts of Greek gods, a hookah lounge, a wine cellar, a theatre, a personal waterfall, a lap-dancing den, a casino, a cocktail lounge, a gym, an underground hockey rink and a tunnel leading to a private beach. The estate has more than 190,000 square feet of living space.
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In Samoa, 21.9% of the population lived below the national poverty line in 2018. For every 1,000 babies born in Samoa in 2022, 16 died before their 5th birthday.
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Da'Vine Joy Randolph at the Golden Globes. She is an American actress with a net worth of around $2 million.
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Eastern Kentucky has been long forgotten by affluent America. Wolfe County, the poorest in eastern Kentucky, has a median income of about $22,000 a year and a poverty rate of 36%. That’s the lowest income and the 18th highest poverty rate among the nation’s 3,000 counties.
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Michael Jordan is widely considered to be the greatest basketball player who ever lived. He helped his team the Chicago Bulls win six titles, with career earnings of $90 million. Jordan's post-career business ventures have significantly boosted his overall net worth, with brand endorsements including for Nike among the most lucrative deals in history from which he reportedly is making $100 million annually from royalties alone. Michael Jordan’s net worth is estimated to be $3 billion.
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Like many of the world’s poor, Arjun and his family of five live under the cover of a plastic tarp in the Charan slum settlement outside of Dharamsala, India. They earn their money by begging and collecting recyclables.
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Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has a net worth of $201 billion. He is also one of the country's biggest landowners. The Amazon CEO reportedly spent about $80 million on three adjacent apartments in a building at 212 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. He spent $165 million for his Beverly Hills mansion.
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Rozena, 26, waits at the back door of the brothel for clients who wish to remain anonymous. With more than half its population living below the poverty line, Bangladesh remains one of the poorest countries in the world. As in other countries, poverty, low social status, and lack of education or employment opportunities have forced women to become sex workers.
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Taylor Swift is a billionaire musician who earned her fortune from touring, royalties and her music catalog. Swift spends her fortune on luxury real estate, a private jet, philanthropic endeavors, and a high-end lifestyle. She has spent over $80 million on various properties in no fewer than four states. They include a $50 million seaside retreat in Rhode Island, a $3 million penthouse, and a New York City property described as a "$50 million compound". She owns a $45 million private jet.
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The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, is the home of the Oglala Lakota Nation. Per capita income for American Indians living on Pine Ridge is $7,773. An 89% unemployment rate was reported in 2005. Two of the five "poorest communities in America" are located on the Pine Ridge Reservation: Allen and Wounded Knee. Approximately 85% of Lakota families are affected by alcoholism. Approximately 50% of adults over the age of 40 have diabetes.
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French national, Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH, is the richest person in the world with a net worth of $215 billion. He is the chair and CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company. LVMH brands include Louis Vuitton, Hennessey, Marc Jacobs, and Sephora. His breathtaking car collection is worth around $30 million.
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Nearly 56 million Mexicans live below the official poverty line. In Mexico, poverty income is defined at about $111 per month for rural residents and $170 for those in urban areas, according to official figures. Extreme poverty is earning less than the amount needed to buy basic food requirements, or about $63 monthly in rural areas and $88 for urban residents.
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The Catholic Church is the wealthiest religious institution in the world with at least $73 billion in assets, including billions in real estate, some priceless art, and the Vatican Bank. But its finances are largely secret.
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Since the start of the Hamas-Israel War in October 2023, 35,562 Palestinians have been killed and 84,712 injured, with up to 70% of the casualties being women and children. The blockade imposed by Israel has cut off access to electricity, water, food, and medical supplies. Over 95% of Gazans cannot access clean water, and more than half rely on international aid. The health system has collapsed, with only 11 of Gaza's 36 hospitals still partially functioning. Attacks on medical facilities have left much of the population without access to healthcare.
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The most sacred crown of the English monarchy, St. Edward’s Crown, is used exclusively for the moment of crowning during a coronation. Unofficial estimates place its worth between $3.3 billion and $5.4 billion. The crown is made of gold and set with 2,868 diamonds, 269 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and four rubies. (The net worth of the British royal family is estimated to be $28 billion.)
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His eyelashes singed and skin blackened, Philimon, 14, is homeless and works in Ghana, West Africa at a site for burning electronic waste. In 2023, around 2.99 million people in Ghana lived in extreme poverty, the majority in rural areas. The count of people living on less than $1.90 a day in rural regions reached around 2.8 million, while 214,000 extremely poor people were located in urban areas.