Covid. By comparison, 573 people became billionaires during the pandemic, or one every 30 hours. "Billionaires are arriving in Davos to celebrate an incredible surge in their fortunes," Oxfam executive director Gabriela Bucher said in a statement. "The pandemic and now the steep increases in food and energy prices have, simply put, been a bonanza for them," Bucher said. "Meanwhile, decades of progress on extreme poverty are now in reverse and millions of people are facing impossible rises in the cost of simply staying alive," she said.
Oxfam called for a one-off "solidarity tax" on billionaires' pandemic windfall to support people facing soaring prices as well as fund a "fair and sustainable recovery" from the pandemic.
It also said it was time to "end crisis profiteering" by rolling out a "temporary excess profit tax" of 90 percent on windfall profits of big corporations.
Oxfam added that an annual wealth tax on millionaires of two percent, and five percent for billionaires, could generate $2.52 trillion a year.