DAVOS, Switzerland — The wealthiest 1% of the world's population now controls 50.2% of global household wealth, up from 44% in 2019 and 38% in 2009, according to the latest annual inequality report from Oxfam and the World Inequality Lab. The rate of concentration has accelerated during the 2020s: $52 trillion in new wealth was created globally between 2020 and 2026, and the top 1% captured approximately 62% of it.

The report, released to coincide with the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, has become one of the most anticipated — and contested — data releases on the global economic calendar. Its methodology has been criticized by some economists for focusing on net wealth rather than income, which can overstate inequality in countries with high homeownership rates. But the directional trend is broadly accepted across the political spectrum: wealth is concentrating, and the rate of concentration is accelerating.

The policy debate has shifted in response. Wealth taxes, once considered fringe, are now under active legislative consideration in Spain, Colombia, and several US states. The EU Tax Observatory has proposed a 2% minimum tax on wealth above €100 million. The IMF, traditionally an advocate of fiscal orthodoxy, has endorsed "progressive wealth taxation as a tool for both revenue and equity." The political implications are equally significant: in every major democracy, economic inequality consistently polls as a top-three voter concern, fueling both left-wing populism and right-wing nationalist movements that promise to redistribute economic power — though their definitions of who benefits from that redistribution differ radically.