Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg were among the billionaires who saw massive wealth gains over the course of the pandemic.
By Sharon Zhang, Truthout
As most of the world’s population suffered under a deadly pandemic, the world’s 10 richest people doubled their wealth while the world’s billionaires added $5 trillion to their collective wealth, a new report by Oxfam finds.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, billionaires have been profiting greatly from the global economy, the report’s authors wrote. Since March 2021, billionaire wealth has risen from an already high $8.6 trillion to $13.8 trillion and previous reports have found that the 10 richest people alone account for hundreds of billions of dollars of that growth in wealth. This is a larger growth in billionaire wealth than that of the last 14 years combined.
“A new billionaire has been created every 26 hours since the pandemic began,” the report reads. “The world’s 10 richest men have doubled their fortunes, while over 160 million people are projected to have been pushed into poverty.”
The report’s authors wrote that such growing economic inequality is a result of purposeful choices by government officials.
Recent Posts
Stop Israel’s Dystopian “Humanitarian City” Plan—Before It’s Too Late
Take Action Now For the past 20 months, the world has watched—and largely enabled—a genocidal campaign in Gaza. Over 55,000 Palestinians have been…
The “Liberal” International Order Is Criminalizing Palestine Protests
Take Action Now As Western governments repress Palestine solidarity and enable Israel’s impunity, the “liberal international order” is no longer…
Politicians Are Betraying Gen Z On Climate
Take Action Now While Gen-Zers thrift, knit, crochet, and find other ways to reduce our footprints, Trump and the GOP are greenlighting more climate…
Trump’s Deportation Threat Against Zohran Mamdani Is Shameful
Take Action Now In only half a year of Donald Trump’s presidency, he and his allies have turned deportation into an explicitly political threat…