THE world’s richest people recouped their pandemic losses within just nine months, according to research Oxfam released on the opening day of the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda today.

Oxfam said that it would take more than a decade for the world’s poorest to recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic, according to the charity’s Inequality Virus report.

A survey of 295 economists from 79 countries, commissioned by Oxfam, shows that 87 per cent of respondents expect an “increase” or a “major increase” in income inequality in their country as a result of the pandemic.

The study shows how current economic systems have allowed the wealthiest “to amass wealth in the middle of the worst recession since the great depression while billions of people are struggling to make ends meet.”

Oxfam executive director  Gabriela Bucher said the divide between rich and poor was “proving as deadly as the virus.”

She said: “Rigged economies are funnelling wealth to a rich elite who are riding out the pandemic in luxury, while those on the front line of the pandemic – shop assistants, healthcare workers, and market vendors – are struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table.

“Women and marginalised racial and ethnic groups are bearing the brunt of this crisis. 

“They are more likely to be pushed into poverty, more likely to go hungry, and more likely to be excluded from healthcare.”