Businesses slammed over cost-of-living crisis: 'Enough is enough’

Big business have been called out for bringing in major profits during a cost-of-living crisis. (Source: AAP)

Big businesses have been slammed for taking advantage of the cost-of-living crisis to bring in major profits.

More than 720 mega-corporations raked in $1 trillion a year in profits in 2021 and 2022. While profits soared, 1 billion workers across 50 countries took a $746 billion real-wages cut in 2022.

Analysis by Oxfam and ActionAid of Forbes’ Global 2000 ranking found these companies made $1.09 trillion in windfall profits in 2021 and $1.1 trillion in 2022. For the analysis, windfall profits were defined as those exceeding the average profit made in the 2017-2020 period by more than 10 per cent.

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Divide growing

Extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years, according to Oxfam.

“People are sick and tired of corporate greed. It’s obscene that corporations have raked in billions of dollars in extraordinary windfall profits while people everywhere are struggling to afford enough food or basics like medicine and heating,” Oxfam Australia director of programs Anthea Spinks said.

“Big business is gaslighting us all —they’re hiking prices to make monster profits, plundering people under the cover of a polycrisis.”

Spinks said more regulation, including higher tax rates, needed to be brought in to help stamp out the issue.

Corporate profits rise, while wages fall

Oxfam said there was a growing body of evidence that corporate profits were playing a significant role in supercharging inflation.

Oxfam estimated that top-paid CEOs across four countries enjoyed a real-term 9 per cent pay hike in 2022, while workers’ wages fell by 3 per cent. One billion workers in 50 countries took an average pay cut of $685 in 2022, a collective loss of $746 billion in real wages compared to if wages had kept up with inflation.

“Enough is enough. Government policy should not allow mega-corporations and billionaires to profiteer from people’s pain,” ActionAid secretary-general Arthur Larok said.

“Governments must tax windfall profits of corporations across all sectors and invest that money back in helping people and deterring future profiteering. They must put the interests of their great majorities ahead of the greed of a privileged few.”

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