Oxfam blames the rich for the pandemic plight of the poor. It's a controversial claim

Billionaires have had a great pandemic.

And poor people haven't.

Those are two of the key points in a new report, called "Inequality Kills," from Oxfam, a charitable organization based in the U.K. that seeks to wipe out poverty.

But there's another assertion in this report.

The wider-than-ever inequality gap is not just unfair, the authors of the report say. They believe that this growing economic divide is leading to death – from starvation, from lack of health care, from climate disasters, from gender-based violence exacerbated by financial pressures.

To describe these consequences, they use the term "economic violence," a term used in academic circles to describe the harm caused by, for example, taking away someone's income or damaging their property.

"What we're saying is if the world was more equal, at least 21,000 fewer people could be dying each, director of Oxfam America's Private Sector Department. Because in an equal world, Oxfam says, the rich wouldn't be able to get quite so rich and governments would have more funds to stop "economic violence."