We, as a society, rarely question or dis- cuss global poverty and wealth inequality. We know that there are poor countries and poor people; and anyone, who has ever run out of fuel in Maine in winter, can empathize with them, because they know how it feels to have to choose between food or fuel. What the majority of people don’t know is how severe wealth inequality really is and what the brutal consequences are for those who were born into poverty.

The first and most mind blowing fact is that eight men have the same combined wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion people on the planet. Let that sink in for a second. And they keep on getting richer. In 2017, the world’s richest 500 people saw their wealth increase by a combined trillion dollars! You may ask, “Well what about the poorest half of the world? Are they accumulating more wealth?” The sad answer is no, their wealth has stagnated or worse declined. In a world where the richest eight men have more wealth than the poorest 3.6 billion, the number of people living in extreme poverty and poverty should be zero. This is not a radical thought.

According to the most recent estimates in 2013, 767 million people, or 10.7% lived on less than $1.90 a day which means they lived in extreme poverty. This number has improved since 2012 when it was 12.4%. It has been more than cut in half since 1990 when 1.85 billion lived in extreme poverty. Unfortunately, even though over a billion people have escaped extreme poverty in the past two decades, the majority who escaped still live in daily suffering of “regular” poverty and have very limited opportunities for financial advancement. In 2012 2.1 billion people lived on less than $3.10 a day. While there has been some improvement, it is not at all acceptable in a moral world.

What are the consequences of this insane level of income inequality? I will focus on the worst: hunger. According to the United Nations, poverty is the number one reason for hunger around the world. Globally, one in nine people, or 815 million people, are undernourished. Nine million die from hunger and hunger related diseases. Poor nutrition is responsible for 45% of deaths in children under five, or 3.1 million deaths a year. One in four children suffer stunted growth due to poor nutrition. In developing regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, that number can rise to one in three.

We live in a world where the 500 richest people can “earn” a trillion dollars in one year and nine million of the poorest people will die that same year because they cannot afford food. This is the staggering reality we are faced with today. You may be reading this and thinking, “What am I, one person who is already struggling financially, going to do about global wealth inequality?” Just by reading this you are doing something to help; the first step in solving any problem is simply becoming aware of the issue.