Super-rich

Billionaire wealth has risen three times faster in 2024 than 2023. Five trillionaires are now expected within a decade.

Billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion in 2024 alone, equivalent to roughly $5.7 billion a day, at a rate three times faster than the year before. An average of nearly four new billionaires were minted every week. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990, according to World Bank data.

Billionaire wealth has risen three times faster in 2024 than in 2023. At least five trillionaires are now expected within a decade. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990. Inequality is out of control.

Experts from Oxfam will be present at the upcoming G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where they will be available for interviews about their key areas of expertise, including inequality, taxation, hunger, and climate justice. 

In response to the communiqué published following the Fourth G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting, Oxfam International’s Tax Policy Lead, Susana Ruiz, said: “The G20 Finance Ministers are advancing toward fairly taxing the ultra-rich worldwide. Far from a blip, today’s G20 Ministerial reflects an emergent shift in consensus from the world’s largest economies to reduce extreme inequality by ensuring the ultra-rich pay their fair share. While we need G20 leaders to ratify this commitment at the Rio Summit in November and lay out steps for its implementation, let’s make no mistake: finance leaders have hit a new historic milestone."

In response to economist Gabriel Zucman’s report on taxing the ultra rich submitted to G20, Oxfam International’s Tax Policy Lead Susana Ruiz said: “All G20 countries should support Brazil’s push to secure the first-ever global deal to tax the super-rich."
 

In response to the communiqué published following today’s meeting of G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, Oxfam International’s Tax Policy Lead, Susana Ruiz, said: “That conversations about taxing the super-rich are happening at the G7 and G20 is historic. A majority of people, across party lines and across countries, support proposals to fairly tax the rich.
 

EU governments are losing out on a staggering 286.5 billion euros in revenue annually, equivalent to 33 million euros per hour, due to their failure to fairly tax Europe’s wealthiest. This amount, equivalent to Finland’s GDP, represents what a European wealth tax of up to 5 percent could raise every year, according to Oxfam’s analysis. 

Less than eight cents in every dollar raised in tax revenue in G20 countries now comes from taxes on wealth, reveals new analysis by Oxfam today ahead of the first meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Sao Paulo, Brazil. 

Responding to the publication of the IPCC’s Working Group II report assessing climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, Oxfam’s Climate Policy Lead Nafkote Dabi said: "This catalogue of pain, loss and suffering must be a wake-up call to everyone. The poorest who have done the least to contribute to climate change are suffering the most and we have a moral responsibility to help those communities adapt."