Pandemic Creates New Billionaire Every 30 Hours — Now A Million People Could Fall Into Extreme Poverty At Same Rate In 2022

For every new billionaire created during the pandemic — one every 30 hours — nearly a million people could be pushed into extreme poverty in 2022 at nearly the same rate, reveals a new Oxfam brief today. “Profiting from Pain” is published as the World Economic Forum in Davos takes place for the first time face-to-face since COVID-19, a period during which billionaires have enjoyed a huge boost to their fortunes. In Canada, the wealth of billionaires has increased by 57.1 per cent since the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020. The 41 richest billionaires own as much as the poorest 40 per cent of Canadians. “Billionaires gathered in Davos have enjoyed an obscene surge in their fortunes over the last two years. The pandemic and now the steep rise in food and energy prices have been a bonanza for the wealthiest, while millions of people face hunger and poverty as the cost living shoots up,” said Ian Thomson, manager of policy for Oxfam Canada. The brief shows that 573 people became new billionaires during the pandemic, at the rate of one every 30 hours. We expect this year that 263 million more people will crash into extreme poverty, at a rate of a million people every 33 hours. Billionaires’ wealth has risen more in the first 24 months of COVID-19 than in 23 years combined. The total wealth of the world’s billionaires is now equivalent to 13.9 per cent of global GDP. This is a three-fold increase (up from 4.4 per cent) in 2000.