reducing inequality to at least 1990 levels. The report found that the richest 1% had increased their incomes by 60% in the past 20 years, with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process. Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s Chief Executive, said extreme wealth was “economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive”. She said studies show that countries suffer low levels of investment and growth as workers are forced to survive on a smaller share of total incomes. She said: “We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many – too often the reverse is true.” The report said the issue affected all parts of the world. “In the UK, inequality is rapidly returning to levels not seen since the time of Charles Dickens [the nineteenth-century novelist]. In China, the top 10% now take home nearly 60% of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South Africa, which is now the most unequal country on Earth and significantly more unequal than at the end of apartheid.” In the US, the share of national income going to the top 1% has doubled since 1980 from 10 to 20%, the report says. For the top 0.01% the share of national income is above levels last seen in the 1920s. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have argued that extreme