Billionaire wealth jumps three times faster in 2025 to highest peak ever, sparking dangerous political inequality Lisa.Rutherford Mon, 01/19/2026 - 00:01 Off Billionaires 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people Billionaire wealth jumped by over 16 per cent in 2025, three times faster than the past five-year average, to $18.3 trillion – its highest level in history, according to a new Oxfam report today as the World Economic Forum opens in Davos. Billionaire wealth has increased by 81 per cent since 2020. This comes as one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat and nearly half the world’s population live in poverty. The report Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power analyses how the super-rich are securing political power to shape the rules of our economies and societies for their own gain and to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of people around the world.