20/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!International Herald Tribune, 'The wealthiest one per cent of American
households hold almost 40 per cent of the country's total wealth.' For
an analysis of inequality in France, Alain Bihr and Roland
Pfefferkorn's 1995 work Dechiffrer les Inegalites is extremely helpful.
Table 1.1 Evolution of the real income of US households
Between 1950 and 1978: %
the poorest 20% +140
the 2nd 20% +98
the 3rd 20% +105
the 4th 20% +110
the richest 20% +99
Between 1978 and 1993:
the poorest 20% -19
the 2nd 20% -8
the 3rd 20% -4
the 4th 20% +5
the richest 20% +18
Source: US News and World Report, 6 February 1995.
Between 1977 and 1992, the productivity of US workers rose by
30 per cent while real wages fell 13 percent (Decornoy, 1995).
In the European Union, the share of wages in Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) fell by nearly 10 per cent between 1981 and 1994
while capital gains rose. EU real wages had risen in the 1970s at an
annual rate of 4.5 per cent, in step with increases in productivity. In
the 1980s, real wages rose 0.9 per cent annually. Between 1991 and
1994, they rose 0.7 per cent annually, falling behind increases in
productivity (Montes, 1996).
THE UNDP VIEW ON DECLINING LIVING CONDITIONS IN
THE WORLD
The following are excerpts from the UNDP's 199 7 Report on Human
Development in the World (published in French in June 1997). All
references are to the UNDP report, unless otherwise stated.
The 199 7 UNDP report seeks to measure the reality of human
development on the backdrop of extreme poverty.