World’s first trillionaire could be seen in next 10 years: Oxfam

An anti-poverty advocacy group is predicting that the world could see its first trillionaire in the next decade, as the wealthy’s gap with the poor continues to widen.

Oxfam International released a report Sunday that predicts a trillionaire could emerge over the next 10 years, while it would take 230 years to end poverty. The report said that the world’s five richest people have more than doubled their fortunes since 2020, but 5 billion people have become poorer in the same period.

“Through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatizing the state and spurring climate breakdown, corporations are driving inequality and acting in the service of delivering ever-greater wealth to their rich owners. To end extreme inequality, governments must radically redistribute the power of billionaires and corporations back to ordinary people,” the report states.

Since 2020, billionaires have become 34 percent richer as their wealth grows three times the inflation rate. The report noted that seven out of the 10 largest publicly listed corporations have a billionaire CEO or a billionaire principal shareholder. The total value of those companies is $10.2 trillion, according to the report.

The report noted that men have $105 trillion more wealth than women, which is more than four times the size of the U.S. economy. It also found that in the U.S., a typical Black family’s household wealth is just 15.8 percent of a white family’s wealth.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote the foreword for the organization’s latest report.

“Billionaires become richer, the working class struggles, and the poor live in desperation. That is the unfortunate state of the world economy,” he wrote.

“That is the bad news. But here is the good news. Thanks to organizations like Oxfam, more and more people throughout the world are making the connections between the harsh economic reality of their lives and the destructive nature of our uber-capitalist system which rewards greed and profiteering above any other human value,” he added.