Group: Tax rich to fund vaccines for poor hit by pandemic

LONDON (AP) — Anti-poverty organization Oxfam called Monday for governments to impose a one-time 99% tax on the world's billionaires and use the money to fund expanded production of vaccines for the poor — part of an effort to combat global inequality widened by the coronavirus pandemic.

The ranks of the super-rich have swelled during the pandemic thanks to ample financial stimulus that pumped up stocks, the group said. Meanwhile, poor countries have suffered more than their share from COVID-19 because of unequal access to vaccines, which have mostly gone to rich nations, Oxfam said in a report aimed at informing discussions at the World Economic Forum’s online gathering of political and business leaders this week.

"The pandemic has been a billionaire bonanza," Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher said in an interview. "When governments did the rescue packages and pumped trillions into the economy and to financial markets in order to support the economy for all, what happened is a lot of it went into the pockets of the billionaires."

Vaccine development has been one of the pandemic's success stories but Bucher said they've been "hoarded by the rich countries" seeking to protect pharmaceutical monopolies.

Since the pandemic erupted in March 2020, a new billionaire has been minted almost every day. The fortunes of the world's 10 richest men — including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates — more than doubled to $1.5 trillion, making them six times more wealthy than the world's poorest 3.1 billion people, Oxfam said.

Meanwhile, 160 million more people have been forced into poverty during the pandemic, Oxfam said, citing numbers from the Forbes 2021 Billionaires List, Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Databook and the World Bank.

Oxfam called for rich...