The top 10 wealthiest billionaires in the U.S. collectively became $1 billion richer every day last year, new analysis has shown.
The group – which includes allies of Donald Trump, including tech bosses Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg – saw an increase in their collective wealth of $365 billion over the last 12 months.
It comes as House Republicans edge ever closer to getting the president’s “big, beautiful bill” over the line. The bill looks to slash taxes for the mega-rich, while making cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs.
Analysis of data from Forbes, conducted by Oxfam, has shown that despite the recent market uproar, triggered by Trump’s tariff policies – there has been little issue for some of the world’s richest men.
“We’re seeing a tax code being designed that would bring about the world’s first trillionaire,” Rebecca Riddell, Senior Policy Lead for Economic and Racial Justice at Oxfam America, said of Trump’s proposed bill.
“Even amid the upheaval caused by Trump’s economic mayhem, billionaire wealth has increased astronomically, while so many ordinary people struggle to make ends meet.”
According to Oxfam, it would take 726,000 years for ten U.S. workers with median earnings to make the equivalent of the billionaires. In contrast, if the wealth gains of the 10 richest billionaires were taxed like income from work, they would owe a collective $135 billion in taxes.
A tax of just 3 percent on fortunes over $1 billion would raise over $50 billion from the 10 richest American billionaires alone, according to Oxfam. This is enough to cover the entire federal rental assistance budget or a year of food assistance for 22.5 million people, the organisation states.
A preliminary analysis from the Congressional Budget Office found that Trump’s bill would increase benefits for those earning the highest through an extension of the 2017 GOP tax plan.
Around 60 percent of the tax benefits would go to those in the top quintile (with incomes of about $217,000 or more), according to the Tax Policy Center.
