Anew report by Oxfam has revealed that extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years.
Oxfam bemoaned the growing gap between the rich and the poor in a report released Monday as the World Economic Forum got underway and called for more equitable taxation to stem the rising inequality.
According to the report, the richest one per cent of people have amassed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth generated since 2020.
The report explained that the rising cost of living brought on by rising food and energy prices also increased the wealth of the affluent.
“The current cost of living crisis, with spiraling food and energy prices, is also creating dramatic gains for many at the top. Food and energy corporations are seeing record profits and making record pay-outs to their rich shareholders and billionaire owners,” stated the Oxfam report.
It added that corporate price profiteering “is driving at least 50 per cent of inflation in Australia, the U.S. and Europe, in what is as much a ‘cost-of-profit’ crisis as a cost-of-living one.”
According to Oxfam, part of that wealth came from government funds injected into the economy during the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic that put nations on lockdown in 2020.
Nabil Ahmed, director of economic justice for Oxfam America, commented on the situation and suggested that the absence of economic safeguards such as progressive taxation may allow the wealthy to amass more wealth.
“That was essential. But at the same time, the ultra-wealthy were able to really ride this asset boom that resulted, the stock market boom that resulted. And without the guardrails of progressive taxation in the economy, the ultra-wealthy were really able to line their pockets,” Mr Ahmed said.
According to Oxfam, there are currently at least 1.7 billion workers in nations where wages are not keeping up with inflation, which increases poverty. But as food and energy prices rise due to inflation, billionaires’ wealth has increased.
