The rise of income inequality throughout the world represents a serious threat to the global community, says Klaus Schwab, who founded the World Economic Forum.
The forum begins its annual meeting Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland.
"We have too large a disparity in the world,” he tells CNBC on the eve of this year’s meeting.
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“We need more inclusiveness. If we continue to have un-inclusive growth and we continue with the unemployment situation, particularly youth unemployment, our global society is not sustainable.”
In the United States, the unequal distribution of income has skyrocketed since the early 1980s.
From 1979 to 2007, the top 1 percent of households saw their income soar 275 percent on average (after inflation), according to the Congressional Budget Office. Meanwhile, the bottom 80 percent experienced a gain of just over 20 percent.
“We have to think in terms of how to create growth which is more inclusive," Schwab says.
Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz shares his concern.
“Widely unequal societies do not function efficiently, and their economies are neither stable nor sustainable in the long term,” Stiglitz writes in his recent book, The Price of Inequality.
“Taken to its extreme — and this is where we are now — this trend distorts a country and its economy as much as the quick and easy revenues of the extractive industry distort oil- or mineral-rich countries.”
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