Oxfam: 573 new billionaires joined during COVID

During the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new billionaire was minted every 30 hours, according to a new report by Oxfam International.

The report, called “Profiting from Pain”, shed the light on how the pandemic rapidly widened the gap between the world’s richest and poorest – with 573 of the world’s richest people becoming billionaires during that time.

In 2022, it is expected that millions of people with fall into extreme poverty every 33 hours. Oxfam reported that 263 million people are predicted to fall into extreme poverty this year.

Oxfam also revealed that 2,668 billionaires own $12.7 trillion of the planet’s wealth, with the world’s 10 richest men owning more than the poorest 3.1 billion people on earth.