The billionaire oligarchy grows ever bigger… Billionaire wealth rose sharply in 2024, with the pace of the increase three times faster than in 2023. Trillions are being gifted in inheritance, creating a new aristocratic oligarchy that has immense power in our politics and our economy.
BOX 1: A TWO TIER WORLD: THE FACTS • In 2024, total billionaire wealth increased by US$2 trillion, with 204 new billionaires created. This is an average of almost four new billionaires per week.2 • Total billionaire wealth grew three times faster in 2024 than in 2023.3 • Each billionaire saw their fortunes grow by US$2million a day on average. For the richest 10 billionaires their fortunes grew by US$100 million a day on average.4. • Last year Oxfam forecasted a trillionaire within a decade. If current trends continue, there will now be five trillionaires within a decade.5 Meanwhile, according to the World Bank, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990.6 • 60% of billionaire wealth comes from either inheritance, cronyism and corruption or monopoly power.7 In 2023, more billionaires were created through inheritance than entrepreneurialism for the first time.8 • In 2023, the richest 1% in the Global North were paid US$263 billion by the Global South through the financial system–over over US$30 million an hour.9 • Of the US$64.82 trillion extracted from India by the UK over a century of colonialism, US$33.8 trillion went to the richest 10%; this would be enough to carpet London in £50 notes almost four times over.10
While the working class struggles to get by People living in poverty all over the world continue to face multiple crises. The scars of the pandemic are still with us in the form of unpayable debts, lower wages and far higher food prices, making day-to-day life a struggle for billions of people.11 Conflict is also increasing, which drives further poverty, hunger and inequality.12 The huge human impact of climate breakdown grows each year with deaths from excessive heat, extreme weather and hunger. 13 The election of Donald Trump as U.S. President in November 2024 gave a huge further boost to billionaire fortunes, while his policies are set to fan the flames of inequality further.’14 In its most recent report on poverty, the World Bank calculates that if current growth rates continue and inequality does not decrease, it will take more than a century to end poverty.15 Conversely, the report shows that if we reduce inequality, poverty could be ended three times faster.16 While overall poverty rates have fallen across the world, the number of people living under the World Bank poverty line of US$6.85 (PPP) today is the same as it was in 1990: almost 3.6 billion people..17 Today this represents 44% of humanity. Meanwhile, in perverse symmetry, the richest 1% own almost an identical proportion – 45% of all wealth.18 One in ten women in the world lives in extreme poverty (below US$2.15 a day PPP);19 24.3 million more women than men live in extreme poverty.20 Research by the World Bank also shows that only 8% of humanity lives in countries that have low inequality.21 Oxfam and Development Finance International’s findings in The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2024 reveal negative trends in the vast majority of countries since 2022. Four in five have cut the share of their budgets going to education, health and/or social protection; four in five have cut progressive taxation; and nine in ten have regressed on labour rights and minimum wages.22 Without urgent policy actions to reverse this worrying trend, economic inequality will almost certainly continue to rise in 90% of countries.23 Countries are facing bankruptcy and being crippled
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