OECD Poverty Report: Israel Worst, U.S. Fourth

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report this week pertaining to poverty levels among member nations. According to the report, a few surprising nations ranked high on the list, with Israel at number one and the United States at number four. 

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report this week pertaining to poverty levels among member nations. According to the report, a few surprising nations ranked high on the list, with Israel at number one and the United States at number four. 

As reported by Ynetnews, the OECD found that about 21 percent of Israelis live below the poverty line. That places it number one on the list for member nations, ranking it higher than countries one might more commonly associate with high levels of poverty such as Mexico, Turkey, and Chile. This increase in poverty is a surprising uptick for a nation who was at about 14 percent in the mid-1990s.

Another surprising entry on the list is the United States in fourth place with a poverty level of about 17 percent of the population. The average poverty level among the OECD’s member nations at the time of the report was 11 percent.

At the other end of the spectrum, the nations with the lowest levels of poverty were the Czech Republic and Denmark, who had only about six percent of their population in this predicament.

In addition to its shockingly high rate of poverty, Israel also ranked surprisingly high with regard to the pay gap between wealthy and poor. Only the United States and Mexico had a wider gap between wealthy and poor in the OECD study. However, the study also found that the pay gap has widened in most of the OECD’s member countries since the 1980s. Twenty-five years ago, the top 10 percent of incomes in OECD member nations were, on average, seven times higher than the bottom 10 percent. However, by 2010, that gap had widened to a gap of 9.5 times. 

Nations with notably high-income gaps included Chile, Israel, Mexico, Turkey, and the United States. On the other hand, and perhaps not surprisingly, nations with narrower gaps included Denmark, Norway, Slovakia, and Slovenia. 

The gap also exists between genders in many OECD nations. Again, Israel is high on the list in fourth place, with a 22 percent pay difference between men and women. That places it just behind Japan, Estonia, and South Korea. The United States did far better in this category, but the member of the OECD with the closest pay difference was New Zealand, with a mere six percent pay gap. Overall, the OECD average gap between men and women was 15 percent. 

The OECD believes these numbers point to a disturbing trend toward a small minority accumulating excessively large amounts of each nation’s overall economy. Moreover, those individuals are likely to be male. The OECD hopes that, through this report, member nations may begin to take steps to a more even distribution of wealth among citizens, reducing poverty rates. How that will take place, however, remains uncertain.