World will soon see first trillionaires as wealth of billionaires yet again on the rise: 'Obscene'

At least five people will become trillionaires within the next decade as billionaire wealth surges to “shocking” levels, says poverty charity Oxfam. 

In its latest report Takers Not Makers, released on Monday (20 January), the charity found that global billionaire wealth grew three times faster in 2024 than in the year before, growing by roughly $5.7bn a day, or $2tn over the course of the year. 

UK billionaires also saw their wealth increase by around £35m a day to £182bn – a figure Oxfam states is enough to cover the city of Manchester in £10 notes almost 1.5 times over. 

The charity found that four new billionaires were created in the UK in 2024, bringing the current total to 57. 

The combined wealth of all the world’s billionaires is now an eye-watering $15tn, Oxfam found, with 2024 representing the second-largest annual increase in billionaire wealth since records began. 

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Despite the staggering increases in global billionaire wealth in 2024, the report claimed that the number of people living in poverty, around 3.5 billion worldwide, has “barely” changed since 1990. 

It added that many of the super-rich around the world, particularly in Europe, owe their wealth to the exploitation of poorer countries. It found that the richest 1% in global north countries like the US, UK and France extracted $30m an hour from the global south through the financial system in 2023.

Phil White, a member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, a group of millionaires calling on the government to tax wealthier people more, described the rise in billionaire wealth as “obscene”, adding that governments must recognise the need to “redistribute” wealth. 

“This is individual wealth which is greater than the economic output of many countries in a year. It’s just ridiculous,” White told the Big Issue.

“What we see is that wealth is being used just to grow more wealth, or to control the media, to control the particular political agenda, and actually to steer the progress of the world to a particular kind of ideology or a particular outcome.”

He added that polling of millionaires and billionaires over the past few years have shown that the “majority” of wealthy people don’t support the levels of wealth inequality seen in the report. 

“There is a general recognition among the wealthy that actually this is not good for society and that wealth inequality should reduce,” he explained. “But then we see those extremes still happening, and the situation still growing. As the Oxfam report points out, there’s been real growth in that extreme wealth, but the number of people in poverty barely changed.”

He added: “Governments increasingly have to recognise that we need to redistribute. That means, essentially taxation, and Patriotic Millionaires’ message is very simple, which is that we can afford to pay more tax – and it’s up to governments to implement that.

“Fundamentally, we’re going to have to start taxing wealth and the income from wealth… Otherwise, this situation is just going to grow and grow and get more out of control.”

White added that wealth inequality has a link with the escalating climate crisis, and that many environmental organisations like Greenpeace are now calling for a wealth tax. 

Describing billionaires’ impact on the climate as a “double whammy”, White explained that the wealthy “consume so much more than the rest of the world, so contribute much, much more to carbon in the environment and global warming”. 

“The other effect is actually just their self-interest is around growth, and fossil fuel-driven growth.”

Publishing its report, Oxfam made several recommendations to governments in order to reduce wealth inequality, including taxing the richest. It also stated that governments should commit to ensuring that the incomes of the top 10% are no higher than the bottom 40%.

Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s inequality policy lead, described the acceleration of billionaire’s wealth in 2024 as “shocking”, adding that the global economic system “enables and perpetuates this explosion of riches, while nearly half of humanity continues to live in poverty”. 

“The UK government should be prioritising economic policies that bring down inequality and crucially, start supporting higher taxation on the super-rich,” Marriott added. 

“Huge sums of money could be raised to tackle inequality here in the UK and overseas and provide crucial investment for our public services. 

“For the first time, with the groundbreaking G20 agreement to cooperate on taxing the world’s super-rich, there is genuine momentum to implement fairer taxation globally. The UK should champion this opportunity to help build more equal societies at home and abroad.”

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