Billionaires’ wealth will increase by 1.94 trillion by 2024, while poverty has stagnated since 1990

The combined wealth of Spain’s 30 billionaires more than 185,000 million euros in 2024, which represents an increase of more than 20% compared to the previous year; and globally, poverty will increase by €1.94 trillion in 2024, from €12.6 trillion in 2023 to €14.6 trillion in 2024, while the number of people in poverty has “hardly changed since 1990”, according to calculations carried out by Oxfam Intermón and included in the report ‘The plunder continues’, published on the occasion of the World Economic Forum held in Davos. In 2024 there will be 204 new billionaires appear in the world, which amounts to an average of almost four new billionaires a week. In total, there were 2,769 billionaires in the world last year, up from 2,565 the year before, and their combined wealth rose from €12.6 to €14.6 trillion in just twelve months, marking the second largest increase in combined wealth of billionaires at a time. since records have been kept. Furthermore, the data shows that the combined wealth of the world’s ten richest men averages almost $100 million per day. “They are so rich that even if they lost 99% of their wealth overnight, they would still be billionaires.“, warns the NGO. Meanwhile, according to the NGO, based on data from the World Bank, the number of people living in poverty, on less than 6.64 euros per day, has hardly changed since 1990.

Oxfam Intermón already expected that if nothing changed, the world’s first billionaire would appear within ten years. Although, with current trends, he estimates that within ten years there could be at least five billionaires on the planet.

“The global economy is currently controlled by a small privileged elite that monopolizes not only wealth, but also power. We only have to look at what is happening in the United States today, with a billionaire president in charge of the world’s first economy, which “He is going to rule with the support of Elon Musk, the richest man in the world.” world,” said Oxfam Intermón director Franc Cortada.

In the case of Spain, he has warned of ‘the unprecedented crisis of access to housing, exacerbated for years by cuts to health and education systems in favor of the privatization of the most essential public services’ On this planet they would spend so much money that they could buy all the houses in our country. By more progressively taxing the large fortunes and capital incomes of our country’s super-rich, we could finance a social shield that not only protects the most. vulnerable people that promotes the development and well-being of the entire society,” he indicated.

Similarly, the report reveals that the ‘super-rich’ of the countries in the Global North control 69% of the world’s wealth, concentrate 77% of the combined wealth of all billionaires and 68% of the total number of billionaires in the entire world for their account. the world. However, remember that the countries in the global north represent barely 21% of the world’s population.

According to Oxfam Intermón, low- and middle-income countries allocate, on average, almost half of their government budgets to repaying loans and interest on government debt typically owed to wealthy private creditors in New York and London. which far exceed the amounts allocated to investments in education and health combined. Between 1970 and 2023, governments in the Global South paid their creditors in the Global North $3.3 trillion in interest.