A new report from the charity Oxfam – published as the rich and powerful meet in Davos – has exposed an ever widening wealth divide
Britain’s billionaires have seen their mega-riches rocket over the past year while millions of ordinary people are still battling to make ends meet, research has revealed.
While many families remain in the grip of the punishing cost of living squeeze, the wealth of those at the very top has swollen by another £11billion, equivalent to more than £30million every single day, according to a report published by Oxfam. It has got to the stage where 56 billionaires are now worth as much as 27 million others in Britain combined, the charity calculated.
The ballooning fortunes of those already sitting on huge wealth is far from consigned to this country, however. Oxfam’s research found the combined worth of the world’s billionaires has risen to a record £13.6trillion, after another near £1.9trillion surge in the past year alone.
The global super-rich are also wielding increasing political power as well as huge media influence, it also claimed, with implications for civil rights and the rule of law in countries around the world. At the same time, nearly half of the world’s population is trapped in poverty, with one in four people globally not having enough to afford a regular meal.
Oxfam’s report was released to coincide with the start of the Davos economic forum, when the world’s rich and powerful – from the business elite to politicians – jet to the swanky Swiss ski resort for the annual get-together.
A report last year from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that more than one in five people in the UK were living in poverty in 2022/23 – 14.3 million people. Of these, 8.1 million were working-age adults, 4.3 million were children and 1.9 million were pensioners. Yet according to Oxfam, the average UK billionaire has seen their wealth grow by average of £231million in the past year. Put another way, it says it will take less than the time to watch a football match for them to gain more in wealth than an average worker will earn all year.
As well as widening the inequality divide, the report also claims it is weakening democracies around the world. It highlights how a 16% surge the wealth of the world’s billionaires globally since last year coincides with, it claims US President Donald Trump’s “pro-billionaire agenda”. “His presidency has sent a clear warning sign to the rest of the world about the power of the ultra-rich”, Oxfam said.
According to the charity, billionaires now own more than half of the world’s largest media companies. They also control all the main social media companies, among them Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook parent company Meta, and X, owned by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man with a more than £530billion fortune. Social media platform X has recently been slammed after it emerged its Grok AI tool was being used to make non-consensual sexualised imagery of people. Oxfam says eight of the top 10 artificial intelligence companies in the world are run by billionaires.
Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at Oxfam, explained: “The wealth of the super-rich has shot up because the stock market and corporate profits have surged. This in turn is driven in part by the actions of the Trump administration – they have pushed the deregulation of AI, ended any actions to break up monopoly power and pulled out of global agreements to increase the taxes paid by corporations – all actions that benefit the richest everywhere”.
Sonya Sultan, the charity’s chief influencing officer for the UK, said: “Most people do not want a world dominated by billionaires. Rising protests globally shows people are rejecting a system rigged in favour of a few. We’re seeing widespread anger against the rigging of elections and economies to hand power and riches to the few. From the youth-led protests in Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, these voices are demanding change and we must listen to them and take action. In the UK now a clear majority of people favour a wealth tax.”
UK’s 10 richest billionaires, based on data from Forbes:
1. Michael Platt – hedge fund tycoon and co-founder of BlueCrest Capital Management – £14bn
2. Sir Jim Ratcliffe – chemicals magnate, co-founder of Ineos empire, and part owner of Manchester United – £12.7bn
3. James Dyson – bagless vacuum cleaner inventor and entrepreneur – £10.5bn
4. Simon Reuben – retail, property and technology investor – £9.9bn
5. Nik Storonsky – boss of financial firm Revolut – £9.8bn
6. Lord Anthony Bamford – Chair of JCB who had given millions of pounds to the Tories but recently donated to Reform UK – £8.5bn
7. Christopher Hohn – hedge fund manager – £6.8bn
8. Denise Coates – publicity-shy boss of gambling empire Bet365 – £5.8bn
9. Alexander Gerko – financial services – £5.5bn
10. Joe Lewis – born in London’s East End, he became a currency trader and investment he founded owned stakes in property, finance and sports (family trust owns Tottenham Hotspur football club) – £5.2bn.
