A New Age of Inherited Wealth?

Sixty percent of billionaire wealth is calculated to come from either inheritance, cronyism and corruption or monopoly power, according to Oxfam’s newly published report Takers, Not Makers. The biggest proportion of this is inherited (36 percent), followed by coming from monopolies (18 percent) and crony sources (6 percent).

The following infographic looks more closely at the inherited wealth aspect of the ultra rich. According to a study by UBS, a multinational investment bank, 2023 marked the first time since the report started in 2015 that new billionaires acquired greater wealth through inheritance than entrepreneurship. A total of $150.8 billion was inherited by 53 heirs worldwide in 2023, surpassing the 84 new self-made billionaires’ total of $140.7 billion that year. Altogether, 137 people became billionaires for the first time in 2023 with total wealth of $291.5 billion.

UBS explains that the “great wealth handover” is due in part to an earlier boom in the number of billionaire entrepreneurs over the past 30 years, across a range of fields from the tech industry to growth in market economies. As increasing numbers of early entrepreneurs grew up, wealth started to be passed down to future multigenerational billionaire families. This pattern could be seen in all major geographical regions.

Turning once more to the Oxfam report and its latest figures shows that total billionaire wealth increased by $2 trillion in 2024, with 204 new billionaires created. The charity organization forecasts there to be five trillionaires within a decade. Meanwhile, it notes, 3.6 billion people still live below the poverty line.