In many countries the share of labour in national income has declined over the last three decades. As a result, the low and middle-income groups of people who depend the most on wages for their income are crumbling. Meanwhile, the rich elites who depend more on profits from capital investments than on wages are flourishing. At the same time, income earned from capital investments is taxed less than labour income, resulting in greater inequality.

The MDGs, by emphasizing targets at a global level, have ignored the inequalities that average figures conceal. Attention to inequality should be a basic element of any post-2015 agenda and targets for all development goals should be broken down for different socioeconomic classes or for different income groups.