Billionaires hold a record of the world’s wealth, according to a study released on Tuesday that the pandemic has exacerbated global inequality.
The share of wealth held by billionaires has risen from 1% to 3% since 1995, according to a Global Inequality Report, which found the fastest growth since last year.
“The increase was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic,” the report concluded.
The world’s richest 1% control a third of all wealth accumulated since 1995, while the poorest 50% control only 2% of all wealth.
In the 18 months since the pandemic began, the world has become even more polarized, said Lucas Chansel, director of the World Inequality Laboratory at the Paris School of Economics.
“While the wealth of billionaires rose by more than 3.6 trillion euros (four trillion dollars), 100 million people joined the ranks of extreme poverty,” said Chansel, noting that extreme poverty had been declining for 25 years.
A real-time rating by Forbes magazine shows that each of the ten richest people owns more than $ 100 billion, while the net worth of the asset, the co-owner of electric car maker Tesla and founder of space transportation company SpaceX, is $ 264.5 billion.
Only one in ten people is not American – French luxury tycoon Bernard Arno, and all but two are leaders in the technology industry, whose wealth has grown due to rising corporate stock prices.
The report calls for the adoption of a “modest progressive wealth tax on global multimillionaires” to redistribute wealth, as well as measures to prevent tax evasion.
“Given the high concentration of wealth, modest progressive taxes can generate significant revenue for governments,” the report said.
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