The world's five wealthiest men have more than doubled their wealth since 2020, while five billion people have been made poorer, according to a new report by British charity Oxfam.

It estimated that 148 top corporations made $1.8 trillion in profits, 52 percent up on 3-year average, allowing hefty pay-outs to shareholders even as millions of workers faced a cost of living crisis as inflation led to wage cuts in real terms.

"This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else," Oxfam International interim Executive Director, Amitabh Behar, said.

To address the imbalance, the charity urged governments to curb corporate power by breaking monopolies, instituting taxes on excess profit and wealth, and promoting alternatives to shareholder control like forms of employee ownership.

"Corporate power is used to drive inequality: by squeezing workers and enriching wealthy shareholders, dodging taxes, and privatizing the state," Oxfam said.

"Around the world, members of the private sector have relentlessly pushed for lower rates, more loopholes, less transparency, and other measures aimed at enabling companies to contribute as little as possible to public coffers," Oxfam said.

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