DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 21, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The world’s 26 richest people
own the same wealth as the poorest half of humanity, Oxfam said Monday,
urging governments to hike taxes on the wealthy to fight soaring inequality.
A new report from the charity, published ahead of the World Economic Forum
in Davos, also found that billionaires around the world saw their combined
fortunes grow by $2.5 billion each day in 2018.
The world’s richest man, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, saw his fortune increase to
$112 billion last year, Oxfam said, pointing out that just one percent of his
wealth was the equivalent to the entire health budget of Ethiopia, a country
of 105 million people.
The 3.8 billion people at the bottom of the scale meanwhile saw their
wealth decline by 11 percent last year, Oxfam said, stressing that the
growing gap between rich and poor was undermining the fight against poverty,
damaging economies and fuelling public anger.
“People across the globe are angry and frustrated,” warned Oxfam executive
director Winnie Byanyima in a statement.
The numbers are stark: Between 1980 and 2016, the poorest half of humanity
pocketed just 12 cents on each dollar of global income growth, compared with
the 27 cents captured by the top one percent, the report found.
– Under-taxing the rich –
Oxfam warned that governments were exacerbating inequality by increasingly
underfunding public services like healthcare and education at the same time
as they consistently under-tax the wealthy.
Calls for hiking rates on the wealthy have multiplied amid growing popular
outrage in a number of countries over swelling inequality.
In the United States, new congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made
headlines earlier this month by proposing to tax the ultra-rich up to 70
percent.
The self-described Democratic Socialist’s proposal came after President
Donald Trump’s sweeping tax reforms cut the top rate last year from 39.6
percent to 37 percent.
And in Europe, the “yellow vest” movement that has been rocking France with
anti-government protests since November is demanding that President Emmanuel
Macron repeal controversial cuts to wealth taxes on high earners.
“The super-rich and corporations are paying lower rates of tax than they
have in decades,” the Oxfam report said, pointing out that “the human costs –
– children without teachers, clinics without medicines — are huge”.
“Piecemeal private services punish poor people and privilege elites,” it
said, stressing that every day, some 10,000 people die due to lacking access
to affordable healthcare.
The report, released as the world’s rich, famous and influential began
arriving for the plush annual gathering at the luxury Swiss ski resort town,
urged governments to “stop the race to the bottom” in taxing rich individuals
and big corporations.
Oxfam found that asking the richest to pay just 0.5 percent extra tax on
their wealth “could raise more money than it would cost to educate all 262
million children out of school and provide healthcare that would save the
lives of 3.3 million people”.