A recent article that has been making rounds globally is the headline that 8 people in the world have more wealth than the bottom half. This article cites an Oxfam which claims that  “It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day”. This claim is highly misleading due to an incredibly bad accounting and data interpretation practices by Oxfam and collapses under a plain reading

The report states that the average wealth of people in the bottom 50% is $972(page 119) which when multiplied by the 3.5 billion population of the bottom half gives us a gives us a total 3.42 trillion. The 8 billionaires they cite have a combined net worth of amount 450 billion, almost seven times less than their total net worth. This is still an alarming statistics and it shows that global inequality is a problem but the blatant exaction that Oxfam doing will only discredit the cause. Like the tax evaders that Oxfam condemns, they have manipulated the numbers in a way to create the most shocking numbers for the purpose of gaining media attention instead of spreading the truth

There are several ways that Oxfam could have to manipulate the data to get the most shocking figure, from including rich and middle-class individuals with negative net worths due to debt such as athletes and people who have begun mortgages into the figure to reduce the average net worth of the bottom 50%. This would create a shocking figure but also says that individuals in rural villages in china who are saving money for their children’s colleges are more wealthy than NFL stars who live in a mansion but have a negative net worth due to debt. This is merely the most extreme example as many people most would say are middle class would be in the bottom 50% due to living pay check to pay to check with little assets and large amounts of debts.

The most tragic part about this article is that the headline and data manipulation isn’t needed to create a shocking headline as the raw data itself is shocking enough. When 50% of the world population has only 1/50th of it’s wealth sometime is wrong and awareness can be raised without the creation of fakenews. Fake news such as this can be used to discredit others who try to raise the issue in the further by poisoning the well