Shocking amount Australia's richest people earn per hour
Three of Australia's richest people — Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest and Harry Triguboff — have more than doubled their wealth since 2020, according to the charity Oxfam.
A report from the charity published on Monday, found that the fortune of Australia's richest people doubled at a staggering rate of $1.5 million per hour.
The report also found that the total wealth of the country’s billionaires increased by $120 billion in that same period, which is over 70 per cent.
Tech tycoons Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, are among the top five richest men worldwide, with the report finding that it would take them 476 years to spend all of their wealth if they spent $1.5 million daily.
The global wealth of billionaires grew three times faster than the inflation rate, and they are $4.9 trillion richer today than they were in 2020, despite nearly five billion people worldwide growing poorer.
According to the Australian Council of Social Services, one in eight adults are living in poverty, earning half of the median household income which ranges from $489 a week for a single adult to $1,027 for a couple with two kids.
The report was released to raise concern over the growing global inequality, as they urge the federal government to reduce the wealth gap by scrapping the stage three tax cuts coming into effect on July 1.
The tax cuts will lower marginal tax rates for high-earning Australians.
Oxfam Australia chief executive Lyn Morgain has urged governments to step up.
“We cannot accept a society that promotes the gross accumulation of wealth alongside widespread global poverty,” she said.
“One of the best mechanisms we have to address this is progressive taxation.
“The shame of our woeful global response to catastrophic disasters, displacement, famine and the climate crisis cannot be attributed to a scarcity of resources, it is distribution — and that’s a problem all governments, including the Australian government, need to tackle urgently.”
Oxfam have also called for a wealth tax on the world's millionaires and billionaires that it claims could bring in $2.7 trillion each year.
The report also called to cap CEO pay and break up private monopolies, which have gained significant power thanks to surging stock prices.
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