Are we all in the same boat amid this pandemic storm? Not at all, according to the latest Oxfam report, which shows that inequalities have never been so glaring.
“The pandemic has opened the eyes of many people,” observes Catherine Caron, policy analyst for Oxfam-Québec. “When we are told that it is a collective crisis that we are experiencing, it is not true. A majority of people are caught in poverty and suffer the repercussions of this health crisis, while there is a minority who benefit from it and enrich themselves. »
The organization she represents is publishing a damning report on Monday on the impoverishment of the world since March 2020. The sixty-page document is titled Inequality kills and cites over 300 studies.
“The health crisis should not be seen as a separate health problem. It really came to exacerbate pre-existing inequalities, ”argues Catherine Caron.
In the United States, Indigenous, Latino and African American people “are two to three times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white people”, states the report, which specifies that their life expectancy “s collapsed”. The African-American and Latino populations in the United States experienced a 2.9-year and 3-year decline in life expectancy, respectively, compared to 1.2 years for the white community.
This decline can also be seen in Quebec. Life expectancy at birth in 2020 was 80.6 years for men and 84 years for women. This represents respective decreases of 5 months and 8 months compared to life expectancy in 2019.
Women bear the brunt of social problems on her right now, continues Catherine Caron. “They are the ones who absorb the greatest shock”, the pandemic having pushed back “by more than a generation the horizon for reaching parity”. In other words, the time horizon in which equality between men and women must be achieved has thus increased from 99.5 to 135.6 years.
Oxfam also paints a very bleak provisional picture of poverty. No less than 163 million additional people have been living on less than $5.50 a day since the start of the pandemic, it says.
“COVID-19 is setting us back on several social indicators. It is causing us to lose a decade of progress,” summarizes Catherine Caron.
The big gap
The most “shocking” of the briefing document, according to the policy analyst for Oxfam-Québec, is in the profit that the richest were able to generate during the pandemic. In essence, the fortunes of the ten richest men in the world have doubled since March 2020. “This is the largest increase in the fortunes of billionaires since this data was recorded,” notes the report, which uses data of the Wealth-X platform. In Canada, the wealth of billionaires has increased by 57% over the past two years, says Catherine Caron.
It is not only the members of the famous “1%” who have already financially overcome the crisis. According to the World Bank, the incomes of the richest 20% should have recovered […], while the two poorest deciles are likely to lose another 5% of their income in 2021”, underlines Oxfam.
The organization thus pleads for a higher tax rate for the wealthiest. “Nearly 8 out of 10 Canadians are in favor of taxing wealth to fight inequality and finance post-pandemic recovery,” says Catherine Caron, citing a November 2020 poll. political banners and regions. It’s an interesting change. […] The International Monetary Fund [FMI] says so. The OECD says so. The rich themselves say so. [Près de 200 millénariaux fortunés regroupés dans] the association Resources in motion say so. We have never had such strong popular and political support. »
The luxury goods tax in the latest Freeland budget “is a very good first step,” admits the Oxfam representative. “But we can tax much more than yachts and jets. »
“If we made a single one-time tax on the ten richest men in the world, we could pay for vaccines for the whole planet, tackle gender-based violence in 80 countries, fund climate adaptation and pay for health care and social protection measures around the world. And if we taxed these ten people, they would still have 8 billion more than they had before the pandemic, ”says the analyst.
For now, the trajectory of national budgets is rather in the opposite direction. Information available to Oxfam indicates that IMF COVID-19 loans to help cushion the crisis will “push 73 countries into austerity” once the pandemic passes.
The international organization warns that anger is bubbling under these growing inequalities. “The number of protest movements has tripled in 15 years, worldwide. In all regions, these numbers are increasing. »