A new report has revealed that the five richest people in the world have doubled their fortunes in the last four years, while five billion of the world’s poor people have become poorer.
The report, titled ‘Inequality Inc. How corporate power divides our world and the need for a new era of public action’, has been released by Oxfam and says that the goal of ending poverty across the world could be delayed by 229 years if major changes are not made.
Oxfam said that the massive changes in the wealth of billionaires were witnessed since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Since then, the report said, billionaires have gained $3.3 trillion in wealth and the speed of their gains has outpaced inflation by 300%.
The report says the five richest people in the world include: Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg. The wealth of these five men alone has grown by over $400 billion since the pandemic.
Meanwhile, almost five billion of the poorest people in the world have seen the real worth of their wealth decline by 0.2%.
The report added that the top 1% of the world’s people own a whopping 59% of all financial services.
Meanwhile, millions of workers across the world face worsening working conditions and are still earning less as a result of them. It added that workers were losing ‘25 days of wages’ as a result of the issue.
However, Oxfam also said that the wealth disparity emerging in the world was the result of deliberate political choices.
“This ever-widening gulf between the rich and the rest isn’t accidental, nor is it inevitable,” it said.
The report calls for a wealth tax to be enforced on the richest people in the world, adding that creating a fairer economy is possible.
