billionaire class

Chief executives of the world’s largest corporations enjoyed a 11 percent real-terms pay hike last year, while the average global worker saw real wages increase by just 0.5 percent, reveals new analysis by the ITUC and Oxfam ahead of International Workers’ Day (1 May).

EU governments are losing out on a staggering 286.5 billion euros in revenue annually, equivalent to 33 million euros per hour, due to their failure to fairly tax Europe’s wealthiest. This amount, equivalent to Finland’s GDP, represents what a European wealth tax of up to 5 percent could raise every year, according to Oxfam’s analysis. 

The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 —at a rate of $14 million per hour— while nearly five billion people have been made poorer, reveals a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power. If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years.