The number of billionaires has doubled over the past ten years and reached 2,208. Their income is growing too: the world’s richest people saw their collective wealth increase by $900 bln in 2018.
A report prepared by Britain’s Oxfam development organization says that the wealthy pay taxes and invest in free healthcare and education.
In the period between 2017 and 2018 the number of billionaires grew significantly, with one billionaire created every other day, RIA Novosti news agency reports. The Oxfam report states that the world’s richest man, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, saw his fortune increase to $112 bln last year. Oxfam noted that just 1% of Bezos’s wealth is equal to the entire health budget of African nation Ethiopia with a population of 105 mln people.
It is not the first year that Oxfam reports that the rich are getting richer while the planet’s poorest are getting poorer. The combined fortunes of the world’s 26 richest individuals reached the same amount as the total wealth of the 3.8 billion poorest people.