Billionaires increased their earnings in January by $314 billion, more than the combined wealth of the poorest third - 2.8 billion - of the planet's population, Oxfam Belgium reported on Monday, using figures from Forbes magazine.
The #TaxTheSuperRich movement, backed by about 50 organisations including Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Greenpeace, says it would take 15 million workers an entire year to collectively earn this amount.
The movement is calling on G20 leaders, representing the 20 richest countries in the world, to address such extreme inequalities.
Billionaires pocketed over $1 trillion since July
"Extreme wealth isn’t just growing, it’s accelerating at breakneck speed, putting more and more power into the hands of a tiny few," Oxfam quotes Jayati Ghosh, an economist from the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), as saying.
"Failure to act enables more unchecked greed and deepening disparities, allowing oligarchs to expand their vast fortunes and further extend their power over the rest of the world,” Ghosh added.
Oxfam recalls that G20 finance ministers, who are holding an initial working meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, on Monday, agreed last July to cooperate on fairer taxation of the ultra-rich. “Since then, billionaires have pocketed over $1 trillion in new wealth,” the international NGO notes.
Most G20 millionaires support higher taxes ...
#TaxTheSuperRich movement, whose members also include organisations such as Earth4All, Fight Inequality Alliance, International Trade Union Confederation, Patriotic Millionaires and Public Services International, is urging these nations to follow through on their commitment.
It advocates a global agreement to tax the super-rich at sufficiently high rates to reinvest the collected funds in combating poverty, climate, and environmental crises.
Oxfam highlights that a recent survey, commissioned by Patriotic Millionaires International and conducted among 2,902 millionaires in G20 countries, reveals that a large majority (70%) support higher taxes for the richest individuals.
