The 1% of the population accumulates almost twice as much wealth as the remaining 99% of Humanity

The richest 1% of the population has accumulated almost two thirds of the new wealth (valued at 42 trillion dollars), generated globally between December 2019 and December 2021, almost double that of the remaining 99% of the population. Humanity.

According to a new report from Oxfam Intermón‘The law of the richest’, which is published coinciding with the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Over the last decade, the richest 1% have accumulated about 50% of the new wealth.

The NGO explains that, for every dollar of new global wealth that a person from the poorest 90% of Humanity receives, a billionaire keeps 1.7 million dollars. A) Yes, Billionaires’ fortunes are growing at a rate of $2.7 billion a day.

“The elites are coming together in a context in which extreme wealth and poverty in the world have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years,” said Franc Cortada, director of Oxfam Intermón.

Likewise, the NGO has highlighted that at least 1.7 billion workers live in countries where inflation growth is above that of wages, and more than 820 million people worldwide (approximately one in ten) spend hunger. “Women and girls often eat last and least at home, and account for nearly 60% of the world’s hungry population,” she stressed.

Last year, energy and food companies doubled their profits and distributed 257 billion dollars (just under 240 billion euros) in dividends to their shareholders, compared to more than 800 million people “who are going to bed hungry every night.”

Inequality on the rise also in Spain

From 2020, the joint value of the wealth of the Spanish billionaires has increased by almost 3 billion dollars, which is equivalent to a increase approximately 3 million dollars a dayaccording to Oxfam.

The report also reveals that the benefit of companies in the IBEX 35 as a whole it was 63% higher than in 2019, and 55% above the average of the results of the five pre-pandemic years (between 2015 and 2019). In the third quarter of 2022, they announced results 30% higher than those of the same period of the previous year.

“We are facing a crisis fueled because some of the big companies and the super-rich have taken advantage of the context of uncertainty, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine and are taking a sliceinflating prices and margins, at the expense of a large majority,” declared Cortada.

In this way, Oxfam Intermón asks the Spanish Government to “immediately promote an income pact together with all the social actors, to prevent wages from continuing to suffer the direct effect of inflation.”

Claims to governments

The NGO Oxfam urges in its report to raise taxes on large fortunes to 75%, to reduce growing inequality and mitigate the effects of a “polycrisis” derived from the rise in inflation, the aftershocks of the pandemic and the effects of phenomena such as droughts, cyclones and floods.

The main conclusion of the study is that if a wealth tax of up to 5% to billionaires and billionaires could raise 1.7 trillion dollars (1.5 trillion euros) annually, which would allow 2000 million people to lift themselves out of poverty, in addition to financing a global plan to end poverty. hunger.