In Spain, a quarter of the world’s net wealth is concentrated in just 1% of the population, a level much higher than in 2008, the NGO Oxfam Intermón denounces
The pandemic and the current price crisis caused by the war in Ukraine have only increased the disparity between the most favored and the least. The number of billionaires and their wealth has doubled in the last decade and in Spain almost a quarter of the world’s net worth (23.1%) is concentrated in just 1% of the population, up from 15.3% in 2008. This is how the NGO Oxfam Intermón denounces it in the report ‘The law of the richest’ published this Monday, the same day that the World Economic Forum starts in Davos, which – after a two-year break due to the covid – returns to work together in the city of Switzerland to key international economic leaders, who will discuss how to avoid a global recession, especially after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
“The evolution of inequality in Spain is a worrying phenomenon: while wages are falling and purchasing power is falling, the big companies are increasing their profits and wealth in Spain remains concentrated in the hands of a few,” warned Franc Cortada, director of Oxfam Intermon .
For example, billionaires are recovering quickly from the current crisis and since 2020, the combined value of Spanish billionaires’ wealth has increased by almost $3,000 million (2,769 million euros), equivalent to an increase of about $3 million (2.77 million euros) . ) per day. On the contrary, millions of households in Spain are struggling to make ends meet, as inflation has reduced the purchasing power of households in the worst situation by 26% more than those of people with higher incomes, according to this NGO. At the same time, real wages are falling to levels similar to those of the worst years of the major crisis that began in 2008 and are already 4% lower than they were then, he said.
In addition, the report emphasizes that the profits of large companies in particular have remained stable and have even grown. In 2021, the profit of the Ibex 35 companies as a whole was already 63% higher than in 2019, and even 55% above the average of the results of the five pre-pandemic years (period 2015-2019). A trend that has also accelerated in the past year: only in the third quarter of 2022 did they announce results that were 30% higher than those of the same period of the previous year, according to data collected in this study.
And the same is happening worldwide. The richest 1% hoarded nearly two-thirds of the new wealth (worth $42 trillion) generated globally between December 2019 and December 2021, nearly double that of the remaining 99% of humanity, according to Oxfam estimates Intermon.
For every dollar of new global wealth a person in the bottom 90% of humanity receives, a billionaire gains $1.7 million, increasing billionaires’ fortunes by $2.7 billion a day, according to the figures in this report .
“The current price crisis is also a crisis of inequality,” denounces this NGO, which emphasizes that “we may be facing the greatest increase in poverty and inequality between countries since World War II,” according to the World Bank.
“While the most vulnerable households struggle to fill the fridge or maintain the right temperature, the extraordinary growth in corporate profits in sectors such as energy and food has once again fueled the wealth of the wealthiest,” the organization warns. According to his estimates, 95 major energy and food companies will have more than doubled their profits by 2022, generating extraordinary profits totaling $306,000 million and allocating $257,000 million (84%) to reward their employees. This greed fuels inflation.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
