Wealth of 10 richest persons doubled while incomes of 99 per cent people declined during pandemic: Report

Elon Musk. File Pic

The world's ten richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion --at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day-- during the first two years of a pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 per cent of humanity fall and over 160 million more people forced into poverty, according to an Oxfam International report released on Monday.

"If these ten men were to lose 99.999 per cent of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be richer than 99 per cent of all the people on this planet," Oxfam International's Executive Director Gabriela Bucher said in the report. "They now have six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people," she added.

Billionaires' wealth has risen more since COVID-19 began than it has in the last 14 years. At $5 trillion dollars, this is the biggest surge in billionaire wealth since records began. Oxfam International said its calculations are based on the most up-to-date and comprehensive data sources available. "Figures on the very richest in society come from Forbes' 2021 Billionaires List. Figures on the share of wealth come from the Credit Suisse Research Institute's Global Wealth Databook 2021. Figures on the incomes of the 99 percent are from the World Bank."

According to Forbes, the 10 richest people, as of 30 November 2021, have seen their fortunes grow by $821 billion dollars since March 2020. The 10 richest men were listed as: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault & family, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Ballmer and Warren Buffet.

A one-off 99 per cent tax on the ten richest men's pandemic windfalls, for example, could pay: to make enough vaccines for the world; to provide universal healthcare and social protection, fund climate adaptation and reduce gender-based violence in over 80 countries. All this, while still leaving these men $8 billion better off than they were before the pandemic, the report noted.

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