Per capita, more Americans live in poverty than anytime since 1959.

The World Health Organization claims the biggest killer in the world today is not cancer or any other disease but “deep poverty”.

In the United States the richest society in the whole of human history, 32 million people were living below the poverty line in 1988 (this was at the height of a 1980’s boom) and nearly one in five children were born into poverty.

Catholic Charities said that the number of meals they provided nationwide in 1996 had increased by 16%, and nights people spent in shelters increased 35%.

In Britain one in three children grow up in poverty (defined as being half the average wage), and one in five households have no breadwinner.

In 1992 the total economic output of the whole world was five times what it was in 1950, yet poverty is worse than what it was 45 years ago.

97 percent of the rural population of Bolivia (the poorest Latin American country) are below the UN poverty line.

In Britain, working class people are two times more likely to die of cancer and three times more likely to die of heart disease than the rich or middle classes.