Billionaire wealth has now reached its highest level in history, topping $18.3t (trillion) globally. And, predictably, that wealth also brings political power – compared to an ordinary citizen, billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office. That’s according to new research from Oxfam.
The charity released the results to highlight growing inequality and the influence that extreme wealth has on politics. Sonya Sultan, Oxfam GB’s chief influencing officer, said:
Deep economic, political and social inequalities matter to people. Political leaders need to listen and respond accordingly: stop protecting the wealth and power of a few, at the expense of the opportunities and rights of the rest of the population. Remember who you are meant to represent and serve.
The report’s publication also coincides with the start of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.
Oxfam: ‘resisting the Rule of the Rich’
Oxfam titled its report ‘Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power’. It showed that, in the year 2025 alone, billionaires’ wealth increase by over 16%. That’s three times faster than the past five-year average.
Coupled with this, billionaires’ wealth has ballooned by 81% since 2020. For the first time in history, there are more than 3,000 billionaires in the world.
Meanwhile, globally, nearly half the world’s population is living in poverty. 1 in every 4 people regularly don’t have enough to eat. However, the collective wealth of billionaires increased by $2.5t. That’s enough to wipe out all extreme poverty in one go… and then do so again and again, 25 more times.
In the UK specifically, the wealthiest 56 individuals hoard more money than 27 million ordinary people. In fact, in the UK:
- The UK’s billionaires have seen in the last year their average wealth grow five times faster than inflation-adjusted earnings.
- 56 people in the UK – all billionaires – have a combined wealth greater than 27 million other people, 39 per cent of the population. The average growth of a UK billionaire’s wealth was £231mn in the last year.
- The average UK billionaire will gain more wealth than the value of the UK’s average annual salary in less time than it takes to watch a premier league football match
- On average a person in the richest 1% in the UK owns 456 times more wealth than a person in the poorest 50%. The poorest half holds just 4.6% of the wealth, while the richest 1% own 21.3%. In 2024 the wealthiest 1% of UK adults had wealth of at least £2,317,452 […]
- This year, the total wealth of the UK’s billionaires grew by 11bn, an average of £30.3 mn a day. Meanwhile one in five people in the UK live in poverty.
The Billionaire’s Decade
All of this taken together has led Oxfam to call the 2020’s the ‘Billionaires’ Decade’. The charity’s report also detailed how the super-rich are shaping economies and societies to make themselves richer, by buying political power and media influence.
It also identified a chilling trend. As extreme wealth grows, the civil liberties and political rights of ordinary people are stifled. Then, as the powerless and disenfranchised take to the streets, they’re met with authoritarian measures to counter protest and resistance.
As such, Oxfam has stated that politicians now face a “stark and urgent choice”:
favour the wealthy few or defend the rights and freedoms of the many.
Oxfam’s Sonya Sultan argued that:
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.
Trillions
‘Billionaires now hold $18.3t dollars’ is an easy statement to make, but a hard one to actually comprehend. We don’t really treat ‘a trillion’ as a number. It’s a synonym for ‘too much to actually make sense’. ‘I love you a trillion’. ‘I’ll give you a trillion pounds for a bite of your hotdog’. ‘A new PS5 might as well cost a trillion dollars’.
A million is a thousand thousands. Moving upward in scale, a billion is a thousand millions. A trillion, then, is one million millions. But the problem is that saying this is already too much to get your head around.
Currently in the UK, if you’re over 21 and working full-time on minimum wage, you’ll earn £22,222 a year. If you worked for 45 years without spending a penny, you still wouldn’t have made a million pounds. That’s working without a gap from leaving uni at 21 to retiring at the age of 66.
Around 45,000 years ago, early Homo Sapiens first reached Northern Europe. Say that, upon seeing the frozen wastes that would one day become Germany, they thought to themselves ‘I will now take a minimum wage job’. That specimen of early man still wouldn’t be a billionaire today.
Roughly 45 million years ago, India collided with Asia in the eastern Tethys Sea, beginning the growth of the Himalayas. If one of those newly birthed proto-Himalayas thought to itself ‘I’m going to get a minimum wage job’, that mountain still wouldn’t have a trillion pounds today.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man – pictured here giving a Nazi salute at a far-right political rally – is set to become the world’s first trillionaire.
‘Protecting democracy’ is a priority, says Oxfam
Nearly half of the respondents from the 66 countries Oxfam surveyed stated that “the rich often buy elections”. The charity held that this trend is driving protests around the world – with governments responding by protecting the super-rich and stamping down on civil freedoms.
Oxfam is urging governments to break this cycle by:
- Tackling extreme inequality, including taxing the super-rich to reduce the concentration of wealth and power. Oxfam is pushing for Chancellor Rachel Reeves to bring in a wealth tax on assets above £10mn.
- Protecting democracy, by strengthening rules on lobbying, campaign finance and political influence.
- Defending people’s rights, ensuring ordinary people and civil society organisations can organise, protest and be heard without fear.
A billion dollars is not an amount that should feature in any one person’s finances. Likewise, a trillion dollars is a measurement suited to the gross output of a country, not a single individual’s portfolio.
A trillion is not a number, it is a threat – the equivalent of a loaded weapon held up against democracy itself. As Oxfam has made abundantly and urgently clear, governments must act now to protect democracy and civil liberty – before people lose faith in democracy altogether.
Featured image via the Canary
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