Billionaires’ Wealth Has Skyrocketed by Over $6 Trillion Over the Past Decade

An Oxfam report published Wednesday estimates that the richest 1% globally have seen their wealth surge by more than $33.9 trillion over the past decade, with just 3,000 billionaires accounting for $6.5 trillion of that increase.

The report, released ahead of June 30 development financing talks in Seville, Spain, argues that the international community’s plan to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals agreed upon in 2015 has failed utterly as global inequality has continued to expand, efforts to end poverty have stagnated, and the climate crisis has spiraled further out of control.

“There is glaring evidence that global development is desperately failing because — as the last decade shows — the interests of a very wealthy few are put over those of everyone else,” said Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International. “Rich countries have put Wall Street in the driver’s seat of global development. It’s a global private finance takeover which has overrun the evidence-backed ways to tackle poverty through public investments and fair taxation.”

“It is no wonder governments are abysmally off track, be it on fostering decent jobs, gender equality, or ending hunger,” Behar added. “This much wealth concentration is choking efforts to end poverty.”

According to Oxfam’s analysis, the roughly $34 trillion wealth increase enjoyed by the global 1% since 2015 would be enough to eliminate annual poverty “22 times over.”

The report argues that “a new agenda is needed” to break free from the private profit-centered global development model that has allowed international crises to run rampant while letting the ultra-wealthy continue growing their massive fortunes unabated.

The upcoming conference in Seville, the report states, represents a key opportunity for countries that are willing to “work together to tackle extreme inequality” and “reject the ‘Wall Street Consensus’ around financing development.”

“They can start by taxing the very wealthiest — a new global survey finds 9 out of 10 people support taxing the super-rich to raise the revenue needed to invest in public services and climate action,” the report notes. “Reforms to the international financial architecture and restoring aid are also key.”

The report comes as the world’s wealthiest countries, including the United States under President Donald Trump, are making unprecedented cuts to development aid spending, a surefire way to reverse any recent progress toward reducing global hunger, poverty, and disease.

Behar said Wednesday that “trillions of dollars exist” to tackle such emergencies, “but they’re locked away in private accounts of the ultra-wealthy.”

“It’s time we rejected the Wall Street Consensus and instead put the public in the driving seat,” said Behar. “Governments should heed widespread demands to tax the rich — and match it with a vision to build public goods from healthcare to energy. It’s a hopeful sign that some governments are banding together to fight inequality — more should follow their lead, starting in Seville.”