Understanding Oxfam's Global Inequality Report

14 May

Oxfam’s latest Global Inequality Report makes for troubling reading. Billionaire wealth increased by 16% in 2025. One in four people worldwide are facing moderate or severe food insecurity – a figure that has jumped 42.6% since 2015; this includes 92 million people in Europe and North America. Wages have stagnated while the costs of food, energy and housing continue to rise.

These figures describe the daily reality of workers in global supply chains.

A useful framing: the doughnut

Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics model offers a clear way to understand what this data is showing. The model maps two boundaries. The inner ring represents the social foundation – the essentials everyone needs to live with dignity: food, housing, healthcare, education. The outer ring represents the planetary boundaries we cannot safely exceed. The space between is where thriving, sustainable societies are meant to exist.

Oxfam’s report shows how far below that inner boundary many workers have fallen. When people cannot afford adequate food and housing, they are not in the doughnut. They are falling through it.

What this means for HRDD

Companies conducting rigorous human rights due diligence need to look beyond legal compliance. Meaningful due diligence goes further than confirming legal pay compliance. It asks whether wages actually cover the cost of living – food, housing, energy – and whether workers are falling into debt to make ends meet. Are the people in your supply chains within the social foundation – or beneath it?

The Oxfam report calls on governments to prioritise raising wages and defending labour rights as part of comprehensive inequality reduction plans. But responsible businesses are not waiting. They are already asking these questions about worker affordability and building the answers into how they assess risk, engage suppliers and report on their human rights impacts.

Living wage analysis is increasingly central to credible HREDD. If you are assessing living wages in your supply chains, or thinking about where to start, we would be glad to help.

Read the full Oxfam Global Inequality Report here.

Doughnut economic model image by DoughnutEconomics, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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