PROFITING FROM PAIN - The urgency of taxing the rich amid a surge in billionaire wealth and a global cost-of-living crisis

Meanwhile millions of people around the world are facing a cost-of-living crisis due to the continuing effects of the pandemic and the rapidly rising costs of essentials, including food and energy. [...] 2 1 THE STATE OF INEQUALITY Billionaire wealth and corporate profits have soared to record levels during the COVID-19 pandemic, while over a quarter of a billion more people could crash to extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of coronavirus, rising global inequality, and the shock of food price rises supercharged by the war in Ukraine.8 Oxfam’s research has found that: • Billionaires have see. [...] • The incomes of 99% of humanity have fallen because of COVID-19,28 with the equivalent of 125 million full-time jobs lost in 2021.29 • It would take 112 years for the average person in the bottom 50% to make what someone in the top 1% gets in a year30. [...] • The incomes of the richest have already recovered rapidly from the hit they took at the beginning of the pandemic while the incomes of the poorest have yet to recover, which is driving up income inequality.31 • In 2021, the poorest 40% saw the steepest decline in income, which on average was 6.7% lower than pre-pandemic projections.32 This has led to rising income inequality, which had been decl. [...] Four more members of the extended Cargill family have recently joined the list of the richest 500 people in the world.72 In 2021, the company had net income of $5bn and made the biggest profit in its history;73 the year before it paid out dividends of $1.13bn,74 most of which went to members of the family.