The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. This is the result a study by the development organization Oxfam, which was published this Monday at the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Accordingly, the five richest men in the world have more than doubled their wealth since 2020. According to the report, these five men owned a fortune of $405 billion in 2020. It is now $869 billion.
All billionaires were able to increase their wealth by $3.3 trillion over the same period – while the almost five billion poorest people in the world lost $20 billion in wealth. The total assets of the five richest Germans have grown by around three quarters or 73.85 percent, adjusted for inflation, since 2020: from around 89 to around 155 billion US dollars.
The study published on Monday is based on data from various sources. This is how Oxfam led, for example Forbes– Estimates of billionaires’ wealth combined with Credit Suisse estimates of global wealth.
Oxfam used the report as an opportunity to repeat its repeated call for higher taxation for the rich. “We need a tax on high wealth so that the super-rich also make their fair contribution to the common good,” demanded the executive chairwoman of Oxfam Germany, Serap Altinisik. Specifically, the organization advocates levying two percent taxes on assets of more than $5 million, three percent on assets of more than $50 million and five percent on assets exceeding $1 billion.
According to Oxfam estimates, this could generate $93.6 billion per year in Germany alone. In the Federal Republic, only a little more than 200,000 people have to pay the tax, it was said. That’s just 0.24 percent of the population.