THE GULF BETWEEN the world’s wealthiest people and and those living in poverty grew significantly in 2024, according to a report published by Oxfam today. 

The report also highlights the prevailing disparities in wealth between rich countries in the Global North and poorer countries in the Global South. 

The headline finding from the report is that the world’s billionaires got wealthier by €1.9 trillion globally in 2024. 

In Ireland, billionaires grew their wealth by €13 billion last year, which equated to gains of €35.6 million per day. There were 204 new billionaires in the world last year, two of whom were Irish, bringing the total number of billionaires to 2,692 worldwide. 

Ireland’s two new billionaires are brothers Firoz and Zahan Mistry, whose late father was Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry, an Indian-born Irish businessman who was chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and a major shareholder in India’s largest private conglomerate, the Tata Group.

Oxfam said it takes just 5 days for someone in the top 1% to make what the average person in the bottom 50% makes all year in Ireland.   

The report, entitled ‘Takers Not Makers’, has been released today to coincide with the beginning of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people convene for talks on the state of the world economy. 

It also comes on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States. 

‘Rise of a modern oligarchy’ 

“We are witnessing the rise of a modern oligarchy, where wealth is used to build and consolidate political power and vice versa,” said Oxfam Ireland’s CEO Jim Clarken.

At a global level, Oxfam noted that, “As billionaire wealth balloons, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990”. 

Oxfam has predicted that the first trillionaires will soon emerge and that there will be “at least” five trillionaires a decade from now.

“The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once considered unimaginable,” said Clarken.  

“The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be trillionaires. Not only has the rate of billionaire wealth accumulation accelerated – by three times – but so too has their power,” Clarken said.   

Clarken also took aim at the incoming US president and his supporters. 

“President Trump will be a president of and for billionaires, using his power over the world’s largest economy to slash taxes for the ultra-rich and mega-corporations, at the expense of everyone else.”  

He said Trump’s administration will be “the richest ever to run the US government,” with a combined net worth of more than $450 billion, which he described as “unimaginable”. 

“There are at least 13 billionaires appointed to jobs in his administration”, said Clarken. “And even if you exclude Elon Musk, Trump’s cabinet would be the richest in history.”  

“Billionaires increasingly control not just economies but narratives and that is why in this report we challenge the popular perception that their vast wealth is deserved or based on merit,” he said. 

Oxfam has calculated that 36% of billionaire wealth is now inherited. 

“This report shows how extreme wealth is not simply a function of talent or ingenuity alone but built on the back of the work of countless others and taxpayer investment.”

Legacy of colonialism 

One statistic in particular highlighted the state of inequality on a global scale, as well as the legacy of colonialism: the richest 1% in the Global North extracted €29m an hour from the Global South through the financial system in 2023, Oxfam said.  

Almost sixty years after the end of the historical colonial period, “our global economy is still structured in ways that lead to wealth flowing from the Global South to the Global North, and more specifically from ordinary people in the Global South to the richest people in the Global North”, the report said. 

Global North countries control 69% of global wealth, 77% of billionaire wealth and are home to 68% of billionaires, despite making up just 21% of the global population, according to the report. 

Clarken said that Ireland, “as one of the riches countries per capita in the world situated firmly in the power structures of the Global North,” needs to understand “our own role in this modern-day colonialism”. 

“For us to truly honour our past and live up to our promise Ireland must act in solidarity and stand with the countries of the Global South as they seek redress, reparations and their rightful place in international economic and political power structures.

“Our history gives us an appreciation for the position of the dispossessed, of the excluded and disempowered. 

“Acknowledging how we currently benefit from global inequality should lead us to take an even stronger stance on behalf of those labouring under economic and political disparity and climate breakdown. 

“We owe it to the Global South to stand squarely with them.”