U.S. Billionaires Boost Their Wealth by 40 Percent During Coronavirus Crisis
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JENNINGS/POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesADDRESS:
JOHN BINDER
28 Jan 20218042:21
Billionaires in the United States have increased their wealth by nearly 40
percent since the start of the Chinese coronavirus crisis, new analysis finds.
The nation’s 660 billionaires have grown their collective net worth by $1.1
trillion since March 2020, when economic lockdowns closed small and
medium-sized businesses, according to analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness.
In March 2020, U.S. billionaires had a combined net worth of just under $3
trillion. Today, that net worth has jumped to $4.1 trillion — a 38.6 percent
increase in wealth for the nation’s richest one percent of earners.
At the same time, 18 million Americans remain jobless, 6.2 million are
underemployed, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses have been forced
to close.
The wealth growth among billionaires has been so vast that 46 former
millionaires have become billionaires since the start of the crisis. Their $4.1
trillion combined wealth means that they have more money than the bottom half
of earners — 165 million Americans — whose combined wealth stands at $2.4
trillion.
Specifically, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has grown his wealth by more than 60
percent since March 2020 while Tesla CEO Elon Musk has boosted his wealth by
628.5 percent. Similarly, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has raked in 23
percent more during the crisis than before and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has
increased his wealth by nearly 70 percent.
The analysis shows the massive gap in economic gains and losses between the
nation’s wealthiest and working and middle class Americans who have
disproportionately been impacted by the crisis and the subsequent economic
lockdowns various state governments have imposed.
Pew Research Center analysis from 2018 found that between the year 2000 and
2016, median household income for middle class Americans has been stagnant
while the median household income for working class Americans is less than it
was 16 years prior.
