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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 — the exclusive get-together of the global elite 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. 

Over a quarter of a billion more people could crash into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of COVID-19, rising global inequality and the shock of food price rises supercharged by the war in Ukraine, reveals a new Oxfam brief today. 

The COVID-19 crisis cost women around the world at least $800 billion in lost income in 2020, equivalent to more than the combined GDP of 98 countries, said Oxfam today.  

The fortunes of Latin America’s 73 billionaires surged by $48.2 billion since the beginning of the pandemic even as the region buckles as one of the worst-hit regions in the world, said Oxfam today. 

The coronavirus pandemic is fast pushing developing countries toward a debt crisis that would be catastrophic for their fight against poverty, with the likelihood of multi-billion-dollar defaults that will hurt the entire global economy, warned Oxfam ahead of the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting this weekend (July 18-19).