About 60% of the world's population has become poorer, according to Oxfam, while the wealthiest five men have more than doubled to $869 billion (£681.5 billion) since 2020.
The growing wealth gap is expected to generate the world's first trillionaire over the next ten years, according to the report. It also warns that if current trends continue, it will take an extra 229 years to eradicate global poverty.
According to the estimate, which was produced using data from Fortune X and Forbes, the aggregate wealth of the five richest persons in the world—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Bernard Arnault, and Mark Zuckerberg—has increased by $464 billion, or 114%. Over the same period, the combined wealth of the 4.77 billion world's poorest people—or 60% of the world's population—has dropped by 0.2% in real terms.
“People worldwide are working harder and longer hours, often for poverty wages in precarious and unsafe jobs,” the report says. “Across 52 countries, average real wages of nearly 800 million workers have fallen. These workers have lost a combined $1.5tn over the last two years, equivalent to 25 days of lost wages for each worker.”
According to Oxfam, there has been a significant increase in inequality since the Covid pandemic. The world's millionaires are now $3.3 trillion (£2.6 trillion) richer than they were in 2020, and their wealth has grown three times faster than the rate of inflation.
Seven out of ten of the largest firms in the world have a billionaire as their CEO or key shareholder, despite the fact that millions of workers throughout the world witness their living standards stagnate, according to the report Inequality Inc.
Additionally, it claims that despite household pressure brought on by the high cost of living, business earnings have climbed dramatically, reflecting the success of the ultra-wealthy. It shows that 148 of the biggest businesses in the world together made $1.8 trillion in net profits in the year that ended in June 2023, a 52% increase above average net earnings for the years 2018–21.
In order to restore equilibrium to the power relations between extremely wealthy company owners, employers, and employees, the research also supports a wealth tax. A wealth tax on British millionaires and billionaires, levied at a rate of 1% to 2% on net wealth above £10 million, could bring in £22 billion a year for the government.
Investor Julia Davies one of the founding members of Patriotic Millionaires UK, a nonpartisan group of British millionaires advocating for a wealth tax, In contrast to taxes on labor income, she claimed that wealth taxes are "minuscule."
“Just imagine what £22bn a year invested in public services and infrastructure could pay for; improving the lives of every one of us who live in the UK and providing our elderly, young, and vulnerable with the care and support they need and deserve,” she said.
The wealthiest 1% of people on the planet own 59% of all financial assets, including stocks, bonds, and shares as well as investments in privately held companies; in the UK, they own 36.5% of all financial assets, valued at £1.8 trillion. Oxfam reports that the most recent Gini index, which measures inequality, showed that income disparity globally was now comparable to that of South Africa, the country with the highest level of inequality worldwide.
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