World’s workers are just not getting their due

Zurich (Bloomberg): Workers’ share of global income has shrunk “substantially” this century, and the top earners are taking a bigger part of the pie, according to the International Labour Organisation. New research from the ILO shows that low-income earners in advanced economies have been particularly affected, and that just 10 per cent of workers receive nearly half of global pay.

The lowest 20 per cent earn less than 1 per cent of total labour income.

The findings will fuel the hot-button topic of inequality, with the gap between the haves and have-nots blamed for anger about capitalism. Ray Dalio, billionaire founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund, has called income inequality in the US a “national emergency”.

The ILO found that between 2004 and 2017, the share of income of the middle-class, defined here as the middle 60 per cent of workers, declined to 43 per cent from 44.8 per cent. At the same time, the top 20 per cent of earners increased their average share to 53.5 per cent from 51.3 per cent.