A study showed that while 80 million lost their jobs during the pandemic, 657 American billionaires amassed a combined wealth of $1.3 trillion.
The sum represents a total of 44.6 percent, according to a study by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).
Between the periods of March 2020 and February 2021, 80 million Americans were retrenched from their places of work, the report stated.
The report also stated that between the months of June and November of the same period, 8 million Americans slipped into poverty.
The Executive Director of ATF, Frank Clemente, said, “The pandemic has created an astonishing rise in wealth for the nation’s billionaires while tens of millions of Americans fell further behind.
“Billionaires are living in a different world from the rest of us.”
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The tussle between Tesla boss Elon Musk and Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, for the top spot on the richest man list settled with Bezos leading the list with $183.9 billion – making him the richest in the US and globally.
According to the report, the biggest gainers during the pandemic were Larry Page and Sergey Brin – co-founders of search engine Google.
Between March 24, 2020, and March 24, 2021, Page increased his wealth by $11.8 billion, amounting to a total of $94.3 billion.
While Brin added $11.4 billion to his wealth within the same period, amounting to $91.2 billion.
Forty-three new billionaires were added in the United States including the CEO of tech firm Snowflake, Frank Slootman (with $1.9 billion), and the CEO of Airbnb Brian Chesky (with $14.3 billion).
