The COVID-19 pandemic has been great for the wealthiest people’s bank accounts.
According to a study released by Oxfam on Sunday, 573 more people have joined the list of the world’s richest people as of around 2020, bringing the total number to 2,668. During the pandemic, most people came a long way.
The report, which is based on information gathered by Forbes, looks at how inequality has grown over the past few years. It is meant to coincide with the start of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. This is where some of the wealthiest people and world leaders get together.
During the pandemic, people with a lot of money saw their total assets go up by $3.8 trillion, or 42%, to $12.7 trillion. A big part of the growth has come from areas of strength in the securities markets. This was helped by countries putting money into the global economy to soften the financial blow of the COVID.
Most of the increase in numbers happened in the main year of the pandemic. Max Lawson, the head of the disparity strategy at Oxfam, said that since then, it has gone down a little.
Oxfam said in a report given a month ago that COVID-19, growing imbalance, and rising food prices could push as many as 263 million people into extreme poverty this year, reversing many years of progress.
“I’ve never seen such a shocking change in poverty and so much growth at a similar crossroads,” Lawson said. “A lot of people are going to get hurt.”
Customers all over the world are struggling with the rising costs of energy and food, but Oxfam says that businesses in these fields and their leaders are making money off of the price increases.
People who are very rich in the food and agrobusiness industries have seen their wealth grow by $382 billion, or 45 percent, over the past few years as a result of adapting to growth. Around 2020, about 62 foods for very wealthy people were made.
In the meantime, as a result of adapting to growth, their friends’ total assets in the oil, gas, and coal industries went up by $53 billion, or 24%, starting around 2020.
Forty new diseases. People got very rich in the drug business, which has been at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 and has received billions of dollars in funding in the open.
Seven of the top 10 wealthiest people in the world, like Elon Musk of Tesla, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Bill Gates of Microsoft, are from the tech industry. After getting used to growth, these men have increased their wealth by $436 billion to $934 billion over the past few years.
Oxfam is pushing for states to tax the wealthy and businesses in order to stop the sharp rise in inequality and help people who are struggling with rising costs.
It proposes a temporary 90% tax on corporate benefits and a one-time tax on the wealth of the very wealthy.
The group might also want to charge the very rich a very long-lasting “abundance tax.” It proposes a 2% fee for assets worth more than $5 million, rising to 5% for assets worth more than $1 billion.All over the world, this could bring in $2.5 trillion.
Despite this, many governments have not adopted abundance taxes. Congress hasn’t made any progress lately on trying to collect taxes on the total assets of the wealthiest Americans.
