Davos: The Covid pandemic has created a new billionaire every 30 hours, and now one million people may slip into extreme poverty at the same rate, according to Oxfam on the day of the return of the Davos summit.

As the global elite gathered in the Swiss mountain refuge for the World Economic Forum after a two-year Covid-induced absence, the international charity argued it was time to tax the wealthy to support the less fortunate.

Oxfam predicts that 263 million people will fall into extreme poverty this year, at a rate of one million every 33 hours, as galloping inflation adds a cost-of-living problem to Covid.

During the pandemic, 573 people became billionaires, or one every 30 hours, on average.

“Billionaires are arriving in Davos to celebrate an incredible surge in their fortunes,” Oxfam executive director Gabriela Bucher said in a statement.

“The pandemic and now the steep increases in food and energy prices have, simply put, been a bonanza for them,” Bucher said.

“Meanwhile, decades of progress on extreme poverty are now in reverse and millions of people are facing impossible rises in the cost of simply staying alive,” she said.

Oxfam advocated for a one-time “solidarity tax” on billionaires’ pandemic windfall to help people suffering rising prices and fund a “fair and sustainable recovery” from the pandemic.

It also stated that it was time to “stop crisis profiteering” by instituting a “temporary excess profit tax” of 90% on large firms’ windfall profits.

According to Oxfam, a 2% annual wealth tax on millionaires and 5% on billionaires could produce $2.52 trillion each year.

According to the report, a wealth tax would help pull 2.3 billion people out of poverty, provide enough vaccines for the entire planet, and fund universal health care for those in poorer countries.

Oxfam’s estimations were based on the Forbes list of billionaires and World Bank data.

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