Billionaires Reportedly Increased Their Wealth by Trillions During COVID Pandemic

While millions fell into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic, billionaires reportedly added trillions to their bank accounts.

According to CNN, Oxfam International reported that from March 2020 to November 2021, billionaires’ total wealth increased from $8.6 trillion to $13.8 trillion.

The collective wealth of the richest 10 men more than doubled, amounting to $1.3 billion a day, as the outlet reports.

“Billionaires have had a terrific pandemic. Central banks pumped trillions of dollars into financial markets to save the economy, yet much of that has ended up lining the pockets of billionaires riding a stock market boom,” Gabriela Bucher, Oxfam’s executive director, said.

She explained, “Inequality at such pace and scale is happening by choice, not chance.”

Bucher continued, “Not only have our economic structures made all of us less safe against this pandemic, they are actively enabling those who are already extremely rich and powerful to exploit this crisis for their own profit.”

CNN noted the “combined wealth of the top 10 billionaires — including Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos — doubled during the pandemic and is now six times greater than that of the world’s poorest 3.1 billion people,” citing the report.

Additionally, Bucher appeared on CNN to discuss how so much has been accumulated by these billionaires.

“At the rate of around one billionaire, every 26 hours has been emerging and during this period, because of this accumulation,” Bucher said.