Billionaires’ wealth soared in 2024, anti-poverty group says
The anti-poverty group Oxfam International’s latest report on global inequality is calling for caps on CEO pay, better salaries for workers.
Billionaires’ wealth grew three times faster in 2024 than the year before, a top anti-poverty group reported on Monday as some of the world’s political and financial elite prepared for an annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.
Oxfam International, in its latest assessment of global inequality timed to the opening of the World Economic Forum meeting, also predicts at least five trillionaires will crop up over the next decade.
A year ago, the group forecast that only one trillionaire would appear during that time.
The group’s sharp-edged report, titled “Takers Not Makers,” also says the number of people in poverty has barely budged since 1990.
The World Economic Forum expects to host some 3,000 attendees, including business executives, academics, government officials, and civic group leaders at its annual meeting in the Alpine village of Davos.
President-elect Donald Trump, who visited Davos twice during his first term and was set to take the oath of office on Monday, is expected to take part in the forum’s event by video on Thursday.
He has long championed wealth accumulation — including his own — and counts multibillionaire Elon Musk as a top adviser.
“What you’re seeing at the moment is a billionaire president taking oaths today, backed by the richest man. So this is pretty much the jewel in the crown of the global oligarchies,” Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, said in an interview, referring to Mr Trump and Mr Musk.
“It’s not about one specific individual. It’s the economic system that we have created where the billionaires are now pretty much being able to shape economic policies, social policies, which eventually gives them more and more profit,” he added.
Like Mr Biden’s call for making billionaires “begin to pay their fair share” through the US tax code, Oxfam — a global advocacy group — called on governments to tax the richest to reduce inequality and extreme wealth, and to “dismantle the new aristocracy.”
Many investors racked up strong gains in 2024, with strong performances for top tech companies and stock-market indexes like the S&P 500, as well as the price of gold and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Oxfam said billionaire wealth grew by 2 trillion dollars (£1.6 trillion) last year, or roughly 5.7 billion dollars (£4.6 billion) a day, three times faster than in 2023. The number of billionaires rose by 204 to 2,769, and the 10 richest men saw their wealth rise nearly 100 million dollars (£81.8 million) a day on average, it said.
Citing World Bank data, the group pointed to lingering poverty, saying the number of people living on less than 6.85 dollars (£5.61) per day has “barely changed” since 1990. Oxfam used Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaire List” as of the end of November for data on the ultra-rich.
By contrast, at least four new billionaires were “minted” every week in 2024, and three-fifths of billionaire wealth comes from inheritance, monopoly power or “crony connections,” it said.
On average, Oxfam said, low- and middle-income countries are spending nearly half their national budgets on debt repayments.
It also noted that life expectancy in Africa is just under 64 years of age, compared to over 79 years in Europe.
