Oxfam revealed that almost two-thirds of the new wealth amassed since the start of the pandemic has gone to the richest 1%.
The charity said the best-off had pocketed $26tn (£21tn) in new wealth up to the end of 2021. That represented 63% of the total new wealth, with the rest going to the remaining 99% of people.
The report said that for every $1 of new global wealth earned by a person in the bottom 90%in the past two years, each billionaire gained roughly $1.7m.
Despite small falls in 2022, the combined fortune of billionaires had increased by $2.7bn a day.
Oxfam said for the first time in a quarter of a century the rise in extreme wealth was being accompanied by an increase in extreme poverty.
Policies introduced to combat the economic impact of Covid 19 – such as cuts in interest rates and the money creation process known as quantitative easing – boosted the value of property and shares, which tend to be owned by the rich.
Oxfam said:
Food and energy companies had more than doubled their profits in 2022, paying out $257bn to wealthy shareholders at a time when more than 800 million people were going hungry.
Only 4 cents in every dollar of tax revenue came from wealth taxes, and half the world’s billionaires lived in countries with no inheritance tax on money they give to their children.
A tax of up to 5% on the world’s multimillionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7tn a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.
The super-rich were also key contributors to the climate crisis, the charity added, with a billionaire emitting a million times more carbon than the average person. They were also twice as likely to invest in polluting industries, compared with the average investor.
Danny Sriskandarajah, the chief executive of Oxfam GB commented:
“The current economic reality is an affront to basic human values. Extreme poverty is increasing for the first time in 25 years and close to a billion people are going hungry but for billionaires, every day is a bonanza. Multiple crises have pushed millions to the brink while our leaders fail to grasp the nettle – governments must stop acting for the vested interests of the few. How can we accept a system where the poorest people in many countries pay much higher tax rates than the super-rich?"
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