Worldwide Wealth Inequality Has Become Obscene Since 2020

Jan. 16, 2022 (EIRNS)—As is usually the case when the World Economic Forum is meeting, the Oxfam NGO has issued a new report on wealth and income inequality, which it reports has exploded since 2020 when it was already at extreme and intolerable levels. Of the $46 trillion in new “wealth,” or assets created in the past two years, measured in dollars, the report says that $30 trillion, or two-thirds, was captured by the richest 1% of people, compared to $16 trillion gained by the other 99% of the world’s 8 billion people.

In the previous two years, Oxfam said, new “wealth created” was split 50-50 between the top 1% and the other 99%.

It points out that in 2021 the World Bank abandoned the goal of eliminating extreme poverty in the world by 2030—rather poverty has increased since 2020—while the wealth of the world’s billionaires is increasing at a rate of $2.7 billion every day.

Oxfam uses the report to call for “a tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires [which] could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.” A global plan to end hunger, in fact, would have to increase the production of food, which has fallen in absolute terms from 2020 to 2022.