With millions of Americans struggling to survive amid the coronavirus era, billionaires are becoming filthy rich.
American billionaires’ wealth has ballooned by a staggering $1 trillion in less than nine months, a new report claims.
Super-rich individuals such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have increased their wealth by more than 30% since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Institute for Policy Studies.
Bezos has watched his fortune grow a staggering $69.4 billion over the past nine months. His estimated wealth now stands at $182.4 billion, according to the report.
As Bezos becomes insanely richer, 20,000 Amazon employees have tested COVID-19-positive, noted the company.
“Billionaire wealth equates to a fortune almost impossible to spend over multiple lifetimes of absolute luxury,” Luke Hilyard, the executive director of the think tank the High Pay Centre, explained to The Guardian in October. “Anyone accumulating riches on this scale could easily afford to raise the pay of the employees who generate their wealth, or contribute a great deal more in taxes to support vital public services, while remaining very well rewarded for whatever successes they’ve achieved.”
Even more jolting is Musk’s launch into the superbillionaire stratosphere. Earlier this year, his fortune stood at $24.6 billion. Eight months later, he’s worth an incredible $126 billion — a wealth growth of fivefold, noted the Institute for Policy Studies.
And Quicken Loans chairman Dan Gilbert has seen his net worth multiply by a factor of more than six this year. Starting with “only” $6.5 billion in March, he’s now worth $43.9 billion.
But as these business moguls grow obscenely rich, many lower-and middle-class Americans are frantically doggy-paddling to keep their heads above water.
The report also discerned that the net worth of the 650 richest Americans is twice that of the bottom 50% of American households — nearly 160 million people.
In October, the Census Bureau’s survey of U.S. households revealed that more than 15 million American households had either “no confidence” or “slight confidence” in being able to pay next month’s rent.
In 2017, no single person had a net worth beyond $100 billion. Now, there are five: Bezos, Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Louis Vuitton chairman Bernard Arnault, the report noted.
