As I wrote nine years ago, Oxfam is a pathetic organization. Originally created to help the poor, it has been captured by activists who peddle class warfare.
But they play that role in an incredibly sloppy fashion. In all the debates I’ve been part of over the years, no left-leaning academic has been willing to defend their numbers. And if you click here or here, you’ll understand why.
Over the years, I’ve also shared critiques of the group’s statist ideology and slipshod methodology from Tim Carney, Marian Tupy, and Tony Travers.
If you don’t want to peruse all those columns, all you need to know is that Oxfam has a zero-sum view of the world.
Though I personally think their real motive (like for many folks on the left) is resentment of successful people.
Whatever the real cause, let’s look at Oxfam’s new report on billionaires to see how the organization peddles shoddy numbers.
Here are some excerpts from the organization’s press release.
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… Billionaire wealth has increased by 81 per cent since 2020. …The collective wealth of billionaires last year surged by $2.5 trillion, almost equivalent to the total wealth held by the bottom half of humanity – 4.1 billion people. …The $2.5 trillion rise in billionaires’ wealth would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.
I don’t want to waste much time on a bunch of cranks, so I’ll simply make two points.
First, Oxfam wants readers to be upset that billionaire wealth increased by $2.5 trillion in 2025. And, given all the rhetoric in the report about inequality, a casual reader might conclude that this increase in wealth meant everyone else in society suffered a decline of $2.5 trillion.
Or perhaps billionaires enjoyed more wealth while the rest of us wallowed in stagnation.
So I want to the UBS global wealth report and did a back-of-the-envelope calculation to find the global wealth increase for 2025.
Lo and behold, billionaires got richer, but everyone else in society got richer as well.
Of course, I’d rather be in the group on the left, because that’s a few thousand people dividing up $2.5 trillion, whereas there’s more than 8 billion people dividing up nearly $80 trillion on the right.
But I don’t get upset about some people getting richer faster than other people getting richer, assuming wealth is earned honestly rather than because of government cronyism.
So I’m content to be with the folks on the right, while appreciating the entrepreneurship and investment acumen of the folks on the left.
Second, the Oxfam report states that extreme poverty could be eliminated if politicians confiscated the $2.5 trillion of additional wealth earned by billionaires.
I have two visuals in response to this claim. Here’s a Thomas Sowell quote about the feasibility of the redistribution approach. Yes, perhaps governments could steal $2.5 trillion in year 1 and then give the money to the poor so they have more income that year. But what happens the following year?
Next, here’s a chart from a report by Rachel Sheffield and Robert Rector, in which they explain that politicians in America have spent $22 trillion since the so-called War on Poverty began about 60 years ago.
Lo and behold, all that’s happened is that there is far more dependency today.
Game, set, match.
P.S. I started this column by observing that honest academics never defend Oxfam’s dodgy analysis, even the ones on the left.
Feel free to click on this headline to read someone else’s analysis of Oxfam’s shoddy work.
