The main thesis of the document is simple: wealth is growing, but unevenly. This gap has widened even further in the last year. According to Oxfam, the total wealth of billionaires increased by approximately $2.5 trillion year-on-year as of November 2025. This is a significant acceleration.
This points to a continuing trend, as their wealth has already increased by 81 percent since 2020.
The gap between the rich and the rest
In 2024, 204 new dollar billionaires were added worldwide, which is approximately one every two days. However, for the authors of the report, this is not a sign of healthy dynamics, but rather a warning that the system favors a narrow group of people significantly more than the rest of society. According to Oxfam, billionaires are up to 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens.
The organization links the increase in their wealth to the policies of US President Donald Trump, including tax cuts, protection of multinational corporations, and weakening of monopoly controls. The boom in artificial intelligence, which has benefited wealthy investors the most, has also contributed to further gains.
"The widening gap between the rich and the rest of society creates a political deficit that is dangerous and unsustainable," said Oxfam Executive Director Amitabh Behar. The institution is therefore calling on governments to raise taxes on the extremely wealthy, limit the influence of money in politics, and take measures to reduce inequality.
Oxfam also points out that last year's $2.5 trillion increase in billionaires' wealth is equal to the wealth of the 4.1 billion poorest people. In absolute terms, the 12 richest people in the world have more wealth than the poorest half of humanity. The number of billionaires in the world has exceeded 3,000 for the first time, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has become the first person with a fortune of more than $500 billion.
The report also warns of the growing influence of ultra-rich entrepreneurs on the media. According to Oxfam, more than half of the largest media companies are now owned by billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Patrick Soon-Shiong, and France's Vincent Bolloré.
Wealth that does not come from work
However, Oxfam goes even further in its assessment and questions the very origin of much of this wealth. It claims that approximately 70 percent of the wealth of the richest was not created through innovation, entrepreneurial skills, risk-taking, or higher productivity, but rather through inheritance, monopoly market positions, or close ties to political power.
This is one of the reasons why the report talks about a division into two worlds. In one lives a narrow elite whose wealth is growing faster than ever before. In the other is the majority of the population, whose standard of living is improving only slowly, if at all.
In addition to the moral dimension of inequality, analysts also addressed its economic consequences. They point out that the number of people living in poverty globally is almost the same as in 1990. This suggests that economic growth alone does not automatically mean less poverty.
On the contrary, analysis of World Bank data shows that if governments focused more on reducing inequality, the fight against extreme poverty could progress up to three times faster.
The document pays particular attention to inheritance. In 2023, for the first time, more billionaires acquired their wealth through inheritance than through their own business activities. And this trend is set to continue—over the next thirty years, more than $5.2 trillion is expected to be transferred to the heirs of today's billionaires.
Monopolies, politics, and old inequalities resonate
However, inheritance is not the only factor. The authors estimate that nearly a fifth of billionaires' wealth comes from monopoly market power and another six percent from relationships between economic elites and political power, i.e., clientelism.
At the same time, they point to a broader historical context. According to them, colonial heritage and unevenly set global rules have contributed to the fact that almost 70 percent of billionaires live in the rich countries of the global North.
These countries control more than three-quarters of the total wealth of billionaires, even though they make up only a small part of the world's population.
However, Oxfam does not stop at criticism. It proposes a number of measures that it believes could help mitigate growing inequality. These include higher taxes on wealth and inheritance, stronger protection of workers' rights, and more robust social systems.
Another important issue is the reform of international tax rules and greater coordination between countries, particularly within the UN. Criticism is also directed at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, where rich countries have a disproportionately strong voice.
According to Oxfam, without changes to the functioning of these institutions, it will be difficult to systematically address global inequalities.
We are reaching the limits of the growth model
If up to 60 percent of billionaires' wealth comes from so-called "unearned" sources, the global economy is still set up to systematically shift wealth toward a narrow elite. What does this mean for Slovakia and other post-communist countries, for example?
Although we are not among the countries with a high number of dollar or euro billionaires, our economic model is heavily dependent on foreign corporations and supply chains based on assembly. It is precisely these structures that the report describes as a form of "modern colonialism," in which profits are concentrated abroad while wages in the domestic economy remain low.
The combination of low wages, weak taxation of capital and property, and pressure on public spending—especially in education and healthcare—creates a dynamic similar to that identified by Oxfam at the global level: labor does not receive a fair share of the wealth created.
For Slovakia, therefore, the thesis that reducing inequalities would lead to a significantly faster reduction in poverty than economic growth alone is particularly relevant.
In addition, the V4 countries (Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary) are a typical example of a region that has grown economically since 1989, but where a significant portion of the profits generated have gone to multinational companies and financial centers outside the region.
The report points out that countries with less bargaining power often compete with low taxes and wages, which deepens inequality and weakens public services – exactly in line with developments in Central Europe.
From the perspective of the V4 countries, Oxfam's call for higher taxation of extreme wealth, monopolies, and inheritance, as well as for the strengthening of labor rights, is therefore crucial. Without these measures, the gap between GDP growth and the living standards of the majority of the population will continue to widen.
It appears that the problem with today's economy is not a lack of wealth, but the way in which it is systematically transferred to the "chosen few" – and countries such as Slovakia and the entire V4 region are losing out in the long term.
Liberal circles criticize Oxfam report
Analysts at the Austrian liberal think tank Agenda Austria characterize the report as "an annual headline full of statistical and logical inaccuracies." They argue that Oxfam systematically distorts the facts to promote an anti-capitalist agenda.
According to the think tank's experts, there are five significant inaccuracies in the statistics:
Wealth is not income
The statement that "Musk earns the average global annual income in four seconds" sounds as if he received this money directly into his bank account. However, it is usually a calculation of net worth, with rising stock prices also meaning rising wealth.
Fluctuating stock valuations are ignored
In the technology and artificial intelligence sectors in particular, "wealth" can rise sharply in a matter of months—and fall just as quickly. Oxfam ignores this volatility and primarily presents record highs. In this context, Agenda Austria emphasizes that rising stock prices only increase wealth on paper without any real cash flow.
Economic journalist Shekhar Gupta calls Oxfam's conclusions "nonsensical and propagandistic" because they ignore actual income flows and lead to incorrect conclusions about wealth distribution.
Poverty is a matter of definition
There are different poverty lines, writes the Austrian think tank, and depending on which one is used, the picture can change dramatically. According to the World Bank's definition, "extremely poor" is someone who lives on less than $2.15 a day, which affects approximately 800 million people, or roughly one-tenth of the global population.
On the other hand, higher values are also used to define extreme poverty, such as $8.30 per day, which is the threshold used for middle- and high-income countries. Under this methodology, almost half of the world's population is considered poor. So when someone says that half the world lives in poverty, it often says more about the chosen definition than about the actual reality of life.
British economist and journalist Felix Salmon, who has lived in the US for many years, accuses the organization of using net wealth (assets minus liabilities) as a reference value, which, for example, artificially portrays wealthy individuals with debts as "poor" and distorts global poverty statistics.
Charles Kenny of the Center for Global Development criticizes Oxfam for underestimating progress in poverty reduction by focusing on wealth rather than income.
As inequality grows, so does poverty
The world may be unequal, but poverty can still be reduced. And that has been happening for decades. "In the long term, extreme poverty has fallen significantly—despite crises and despite (or thanks to) billionaires like Elon Musk who create wealth," writes Agenda Austria.
The ideas of envy and power are linked
"Inequality is not the same as political influence that threatens democracy. Those who link the two quickly arrive at the standard demand for higher taxes without clearly identifying the real problem," adds the Austrian think tank in its final point.
In conclusion, it adds that the poor are not poor because the rich are rich. According to this organization, poverty has other causes, notably poorly developed institutions, poor framework conditions, a lack of jobs, and low productivity.