According to a recent Oxfam analysis released in conjunction with the World Economic Forum annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, the top 1 percent of the world’s income holders have taken nearly two-thirds of the $42 trillion in new wealth created since 2020.
According to Oxfam’s “Survival of the Richest” study, which was issued on Monday, the share was almost twice as much money as what the lowest 99 percent of the world’s population received.
According to the report, billionaires’ wealth is growing by $2.7 billion per day while at least 1.7 billion people currently reside in nations where inflation is surpassing salaries.
In addition, according to Oxfam, half of the world’s billionaires reside in nations that do not impose inheritance taxes on their direct descendants, putting them on track to leave $5 trillion to their heirs—more than Africa’s entire GDP.
According to Oxfam, a 5% tax on the billionaires and multi-millionaires of the globe could generate $1.7 trillion annually, which would be sufficient to bring 2 billion people out of poverty.
“While ordinary people are making daily sacrifices on essentials like food, the super-rich have outdone even their wildest dreams. Just two years in, this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires — a roaring ‘20s boom for the world’s richest,” said Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International.
“Taxing the super-rich and big corporations is the door out of today’s overlapping crises. It’s time we demolish the convenient myth that tax cuts for the richest result in their wealth somehow ‘trickling down’ to everyone else. Forty years of tax cuts for the super-rich have shown that a rising tide doesn’t lift all ships — just the superyachts.”
Global business and political elites gather annually at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to address political and economic topics of interest to the entire world.
52 heads of state and over 600 CEOs will attend the meeting, which runs from Monday through Friday.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
