Peru's richest 1% took 42% of new wealth since 2019, Oxfam finds

The richest 1% of Peruvians captured 42% of all the new wealth created in the country between 2019 and 2025, while the poorest half of the population received just 1.4%, according to an Oxfam analysis released on Tuesday.

The top 1% had taken about 39% of new wealth over the two decades before that, Oxfam said, so their share has grown.

A survey the charity ran with the Institute for Peruvian Studies, a Lima think tank, found 84% of Peruvians believe powerful interests shape politics for their own benefit. More than three in four said wealthy companies and individuals do not pay their fair share of tax, and about 70% want the government to do more to cut inequality. A majority said they had limited access to health care, jobs, education and justice.

“Economic inequality in Peru has remained stubbornly high for decades,” said Alejandra Alayza, Oxfam’s executive director in Peru. Many people had come to accept it, she suggested, calling that “a dangerous kind of fatalism, and we must tear it down.” “Inequality is not a force of nature; it is made by political choices,” she said.

The findings land in a country worn down by political churn. Peru has had nine presidents in the past ten years, amid investigations, scandals and impeachments under a constitutional clause that lets Congress remove a president for “moral incapacity”. Right-wing President Keiko Fujimori was sworn in in July after a narrow election marked by voting delays and bitter recriminations.

Will Freeman, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, described a narrow political, criminal and business elite that keeps its grip on power even as presidents come and go. Freedom House, which downgraded Peru from “free” to “partly free” in 2023, said in its 2026 report that “high-profile corruption scandals have eroded public trust in government.”