Billionaire wealth grows 3 times faster than ever before, Oxfam warns
By Elissa Miolene // 22 January 2026
Billionaire wealth has hit a new peak — and last year, the wealth of the world’s richest grew three times faster than ever before.
By November 2025, billionaires had accumulated $2.5 trillion more wealth than at the same time in 2024, enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over, according to an analysis released by Oxfam International on Monday. It’s a surge that coincided with not just wealth, but power — with Oxfam reporting that today, billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than the average person.
“This is happening in a world where 50% of people live in poverty, and one in four actually sleeps hungry,” Amitabh Behar, Oxfam’s executive director, told Devex during the World Economic Forum.
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About the author
Elissa Miolene
Elissa Miolene covers U.S. foreign assistance from Washington, D.C. She previously covered education at The San Jose Mercury News, and has written for The Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other news outlets across the world. Before shifting to journalism, Elissa led communications for aid agencies in the United States, East Africa, and South Asia.
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