Fortunes Of World's Five Richest Men Double Since 2020: Oxfam Report (Image; Pixabay)
As per the recently released Oxfam’s annual inequality report, the five wealthiest people on Earth have become more wealthy in recent years. The report says that the fortunes of the world”s wealthiest five men have more than doubled since 2020. Notably, during the same period, almost five billion people globally have become poorer.
“At current rates, it will take 230 years to end poverty, but we could have our first trillionaire in 10 years,” mentioned the report, which was released on January 15. As per this report, the wealth is concentrated in the Global North. Notably, only 21 percent of humanity lives in the countries in this region. However, these countries are home to 69 percent of private wealth and 74 percent of the world’s billionaire wealth. At the same time, 4.8 billion people are currently poorer than they were in 2019. “For the poorest people, who are more likely to be women, racialized peoples, and marginalized groups in every society, daily life has become more brutal still,” added the report.
In the report titled “Inequality Inc,” Oxfam says that the fortunes of the five richest men witnessed massive growth. This includes Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffet, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and LVMH chief Bernard Arnault. CNN, citing “Inequality Inc”, reported that Elon Musk”s wealth surged to $245.5 billion at the end of November, up 737 percent from March 2020.
It is worth mentioning that the Oxfam report also says that if each of the five wealthiest men were to spend a million US dollars daily, they would take 476 years to exhaust their combined wealth. Also, the world’s richest 1 percent own 43 percent of all global financial assets. Seven out of 10 of the largest public companies in the world have either a billionaire CEO or a billionaire as their principal shareholder. On the other hand, poverty in the poorest countries is still higher than it was in 2019. The report says that hundreds of millions of people are struggling to make their earnings stretch further each month as prices are outpacing their pay.
