Oxfam says it expects 263 million people to sink into extreme poverty this year.
Davos:
The Kovid epidemic has created a new billionaire every 30 hours and now at the same rate one million people could fall into extreme poverty, Oxfam said as it returned to the Davos summit on Monday.
The international charity says it is time to pay taxes to the rich to support the less fortunate as global elites gather at the Swiss Mountain Haven for the World Economic Forum after a two-year cowardly-persuasive absence.
Oxfam says it expects 263 million people to sink into extreme poverty this year, at a rate of one million every 33 hours, as rising inflation adds to the cost of living at the top of the cove.
By comparison, there were 573 billionaires during the epidemic, or one every 30 hours.
“Billionaires are coming to Davos to celebrate an incredible rise in their fortunes,” Oxfam executive director Gabriela Butcher said in a statement.
“The epidemic and now the sharp rise in food and energy prices have been a boon for them,” Boucher said.
“Meanwhile, decades of progress in extreme poverty are now reversing and millions of people are simply experiencing an impossible increase in the cost of living,” he said.
Oxfam has called for a one-point “solidarity tax” on billionaire disaster relief to support those facing rising prices, as well as funding for a “fair and sustainable recovery” from the epidemic.
It added that it was time to “end the crisis of profiteering” by introducing a 90 percent “temporary surplus tax” on the uncomfortable profits of large corporations.
Oxfam added that the annual wealth tax on billionaires could earn শতাংশ 2.52 trillion a year, two percent and five percent for billionaires.
Such wealth taxes would help lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty, create adequate vaccines for the world, and pay for universal health care for people in poor countries, it said.
Oxfam calculates this based on Forbes’ list of billionaires and data from the World Bank.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published from a syndicated feed.)
