Oxfam: Corporations and the super-rich are winners of the crises

For the first time in 25 years, extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased at the same time. The significant increase in food and energy prices over the past year has made billionaires even richer. “While millions of people don’t know how to pay for food and energy, the crises of our time are bringing gigantic wealth gains for billionaires,” said Oxfam spokesman Manuel Schmitt.

95 corporations doubled profits

According to the report by the anti-capitalism organization at the WEF annual conference in Davos, 95 food and energy companies worldwide more than doubled their profits in 2022. Accordingly, they achieved 306 billion US dollars (283 billion euros) in random prizes and distributed 257 billion US dollars (84 percent) of this to shareholders. Oxfam defines wins here as random wins if they exceed the average for the years 2018 to 2021 by 10 percent or more.

The bottom line is that corporations and the super-rich are the winners of the corona pandemic and energy crisis, Oxfam noted. The richest one percent of the world’s population has collected around two-thirds of global wealth growth since the beginning of the corona pandemic. The trend is even clearer in Germany: 81 percent of the wealth growth that was generated in Germany in 2020 and 2021 was attributable to the richest one percent of the population.

The combined wealth of all billionaires has increased by an average of $2.7 billion per day since 2020. For every $1 per capita in wealth gained in the poorer 90 percent of the world’s population, a billionaire gained an average of $1.7 million.

One in ten people on earth went hungry

At the same time, according to Oxfam, at least 1.7 billion workers live in countries where inflation is greater than wage growth. About every tenth person on earth is starving.

Oxfam is calling for higher taxes for the rich as a way out of the crisis. Decades of tax cuts for the richest and for companies have recently exacerbated inequality. In some countries, the poorest have higher tax rates than billionaires. According to Oxfam, only four percent of tax revenue worldwide comes from taxes on wealth. “Corporations and their super-rich” main owners must finally make their fair contribution to the common good, demanded Schmitt.