According to a new Oxfam research titled “Profiting from Pain,” the COVID-19 pandemic created a new billionaire every 30 hours, and a million people could fall into abject poverty at the same rate by 2022.
According to the report, billionaires in the food and energy industries are boosting their fortunes by $1 billion every two days as the cost of critical items grows faster than it has in decades.
The World Economic Forum in Davos is the world’s most exclusive gathering of the global elite. It will assemble for the first time in person since COVID-19, a period during which billionaires’ wealth has risen.
The international charity argued that it was time to tax the wealthiest to aid the least fortunate. The global elite reunited in the Swiss mountain refuge for the World Economic Forum after a two-year COVID-19-induced sabbatical.
263 million people will fall into extreme poverty this year: Forecast
Rising prices exacerbate the COVID-19 problem. Oxfam forecasts that 263 million people will fall into extreme poverty this year. It will be at a rate of one million every 33 hours. In comparison, 573 people became new billionaires during the pandemic, or once every 30 hours.
“Billionaires are arriving in Davos to celebrate an incredible surge in their fortunes. The pandemic and now the steep increases in food and energy prices have simply put, been a bonanza for them. Meanwhile, decades of progress on extreme poverty are now in reverse and millions of people are facing impossible rises in the cost of simply staying alive,” said Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International.
“Billionaires’ fortunes have not increased because they are now smarter or working harder. Workers are working harder, for less pay, and in worse conditions. The super-rich have rigged the system with impunity for decades and they are now reaping the benefits. They have seized a shocking amount of the world’s wealth as a result of privatization and monopolies, gutting regulation and workers’ rights while stashing their cash in tax havens — all with the complicity of governments,” added Bucher.
Wealth tax
Salaries were barely moving and workers grappling with decades-high prices in the face of COVID-19. Oxfam’s latest report indicates that companies in the energy, food, and pharmaceutical sectors, all of which have monopolies, are making record profits. In the last two years, the fortunes of food and energy billionaires have increased by $453 billion, or $1 billion every two days. Five of the world’s largest energy firms (BP, Shell, TotalEnergies, Exxon, and Chevron) are making $2,600 every second in profit. 62 new food millionaires have emerged.
As per Oxfam, a 2% annual wealth tax on millionaires and 5% for billionaires could produce $2.52 trillion each year.
According to the report, a wealth tax would help pull 2.3 billion people out of poverty. It can provide enough vaccines for the entire planet. It would also fund universal health care for those in poorer countries.
Oxfam’s estimations were based on the Forbes billionaires list and World Bank data.