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As the world’s elite converge in Davos, Switzerland, today for the beginning of the 2024 World Economic Forum, Oxfam International has released its latest annual inequality report highlighting the rise of inequality across the globe. Among the findings of the report is that as the world’s poorest continue to get poorer, humanity can expect its first trillionaire by 2034.
The report’s most striking finding underscores just how bad inequality has gotten in recent years. Since 2020 when the pandemic began in earnest, causing a global health and economic crisis for billions across the world, the planet’s five richest men have seen their wealth more than double while five billion people have seen their wealth fall. In 2020, those five men had $405 billion in combined wealth. As of 2023, that wealth had shot up 114% to a combined $869 billion. In a recent Fast Company survey of global business professionals about current threats to capitalism, many respondents pointed to the wealth gap.
When it comes to all billionaires, Oxfam found that the group is now 34% richer than they were in 2020. In total, the world’s billionaires now have $3.3 trillion in wealth. Furthermore, the report found that the world’s richest 1% now own a staggering 43% of all global financial assets.
But soon, being a billionaire may no longer make you a member of the world’s most exclusive club. Oxfam’s report says that it is likely that within the next decade, the world will have its first trillionaire if the wealth of the five richest people continues to rise at the same rate it has for the past five years. A trillionaire is an individual with at least 1,000 billion dollars.
The current five richest people in the world are Elon Musk ($251.3 billion), Bernard Arnault ($200.7 billion), Jeff Bezos ($168.4 billion), Larry Ellison ($135.3 billion), and Mark Zuckerberg ($125.3 billion), according to Forbes. However, it’s possible that none of these men will be the first trillionaire.
Oxfam’s report concludes that in order to stem and reverse the rising inequality across the globe, governments must step in to better regulate both corporations and the ultra-wealthy. Oxfam suggests several methods to do this, including “radically” increasing taxes on rich corporations and individuals, capping CEO pay, and encouraging and supporting trade unions.
You can read Oxfam’s full 2024 Inequality Inc report here.
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