In total the wealth of billionaires grew by a staggering £1.6 trillion in 2024, as the 2,769 richest people in the world gained more assets and money

 

The number of billionaires rose from 2,565 in 2023, to 2,769 last year, with a combined wealth of £12.23 trillion in 2024. This was up 20% from £10.65 trillion, and the second largest annual increase since Oxfam started reporting these figures.

The Takers, Not Makers report by Oxfam found that 60% of this growth came from ‘inheritance, cronyism and corruption or monopoly power’, adding that ‘colonial domination’ was still benefitting the richest people.

From this increase in wealth, 204 people joined the list of billionaires in 2024, the equivalent of four every single week, with each of them growing their bank balance by £1.64m a day on average.

Oxfam has also calculated that over a third (36%) of billionaire wealth is inherited, while every single billionaire that is under 30 has not worked for their money, buy has had it passed to them. 1,000 current billionaires are set to pass on $4.2 trillion in the next 20 to 30 years.

The top 10s wealth grew by £82m a day, as Oxfam estimates that if these individuals lost 99% of their wealth, they would still remain billionaires.

Oxfam predicts there will be five trillionaires by the end of the decade. At the moment, there are zero, with Elon Musk the richest man in the world, even he is is far from trillionaire status with estimated value of $416bn (£314bn). However, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990 at 44%.

Oxfam international executive director Amitabh Behar said: ‘The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once considered unimaginable. The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be trillionaires. Not only has the rate of billionaire wealth accumulation accelerated —by three times— but so too has their power.

‘The ultra-rich like to tell us that getting rich takes skill, grit and hard work. But the truth is most wealth is taken, not made. So many of the so-called ‘self-made’ are actually heirs to vast fortunes, handed down through generations of unearned privilege.

‘Untaxed billions of dollars in inheritance is an affront to fairness, perpetuating a new aristocracy where wealth and power stays locked in the hands of a few.’

Because of the enormous disparity between the wealthiest and the opposite end of the scale Oxfam is calling on the United Nations (UN) to enforce a global tax policy, to ensure the richest ‘pay their fair share’ with half of the world’s billionaires residing in countries that does not have inheritance tax (IHT).

At the current rate of growth in the wealthy, it would take over 100 years to end poverty, according to World Bank data, but ‘if inequality was eradicated then the end of poverty would come three times sooner’, Oxfam said. Today, 44% (3.6bn) of the global population are living under the World Bank poverty line of $6.85 (£5.61) per day, with the extreme poverty line being $2.15 (£1.76) per day.

While 44% of the global population live in poverty, the richest 1% on the planet own 45% of global wealth.

The global north controls the majority of the financial sector, with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the ‘epicentres of global capital flows’, said Oxfam.

One of the key themes of the report was the inheritance from colonialism and its impact the super wealthy.

According to Oxfam, the UK took £53.1 trillion out of India during its 89 years of colonial power from 1858 to 1947, with over half of this money going to just 10% of the richest people in the UK. ‘This would be enough to carpet London in £50 notes almost four times over’, said Oxfam.

There are stately homes built all over the UK, mostly purchased by the National Trust, who found that one third of the 200 it had purchased had a connection to the slave trade. Much of the UK was built off the back of the working class with the average life expectancy of a labourer in the Victorian era just 17 years of age.

When slavery was abolished the UK government compensated the owners £20m in 1833, which was 40% of the UK’s Treasury annual income, and equivalent to just over £2bn, according to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator.

Oxfam report – Takers, not Makers

Croner-i article January 2025

https://www.croneri.co.uk/