The good news is that Spain’s economy grew by 3% during 2016; the bad news is that the gap between the richest and the poorest grew a lot more.

The top 10% of the population hold more wealth than 56% of those on the lower economic rungs.

Sounds bad? What about this: one percent of the population is worth more than 27% of the population at the other end of the spectrum.

In fact, such is the yawning gap that three Spaniards hold more wealth than 30% of the Spanish population. We’re talking about the owner of Mercandona, Juan Roig, the founder of Inditex (Zara, for example), Amancio Ortega and his daughter, Sandra Ortega.

Percentages are sometimes hard to grasp, so we’ll put it another way: the three richest Spaniards possess more than 14.2 million of their compatriots.

These figures come from Oxfam Intermón, by the way; not the back of a Corn Flakes packet, so we can accept them as bona fide.

Furthermore, in the ranking of European countries where the wealth gap has grown the most, Spain ranks second only to Cyprus.

One final point to consider: those three Spaniards saw their personal wealth increase by 3%, while 30% of the poorer strata saw their income fall by 33.4%

(News: Spain)