{"id":207693,"date":"2020-05-23T06:32:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-23T06:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=207693"},"modified":"2020-05-26T06:42:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T06:42:33","slug":"us-billionaire-wealth-skyrockets-to-over-3-trillion-during-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=207693","title":{"rendered":"US billionaire wealth skyrockets to over $3 TRILLION during pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>RT &#8212; May 22, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n<div id=\"attachment_178463\" style=\"width: 550px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bezos-buffett-and-gates.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-178463\" class=\"wp-image-178463\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bezos-buffett-and-gates.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bezos-buffett-and-gates.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bezos-buffett-and-gates-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-178463\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S billionaires: Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Over the last two months unemployment in the United States has risen to levels not seen since the Great Depression. However, US billionaires got even richer during the same period of coronavirus pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">A new <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/inequality.org\/billionaire-bonanza-2020-updates\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>report<\/strong><\/span><\/a> by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies showed their fortunes soared by $434 billion or 15 percent during the nation\u2019s lockdown between mid-March and mid-May. The billionaires\u2019 combined net worth rose from $2.948 trillion to $3.382 trillion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The top five US billionaires\u2014Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison\u2014saw their wealth grow by a total of $75.5 billion, or 19 percent. Together they captured 21 percent of the total wealth growth of all 600-plus billionaires in the last two months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Bezos and Zuckerburg -wealth up $60 billion since March 18th.  Who\u2019s profiting from pandemic?<br \/>See weekly updates of IPS Billionaire Bonanza 2020  <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4fPMaPmoCb\">https:\/\/t.co\/4fPMaPmoCb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Inequality.org (@inequalityorg) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/inequalityorg\/status\/1263786889351442432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 22, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The fortunes of Amazon\u2019s Bezos and Facebook\u2019s Zuckerberg together grew by nearly $60 billion, or 14 percent of the $434 billion total. In March there were 614 billionaires on the Forbes list, and 630 two months later, including newcomer Kanye West at $1.3 billion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Tesla\u2019s Elon Musk had among the largest percentage gain of billionaires during the two months, seeing his net worth jump by 48 percent in the period to $36 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The report noted that during that same approximate period, more than 38 million working Americans lost their jobs, nearly 1.5 million Americans got infected with the virus and more than 90,000 died.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><em>\u201cThe pandemic has revealed the deadly consequences of America\u2019s yawning wealth gap, and billionaires are the glaring symbol of that economic inequality,\u201d<\/em> said ATF\u2019s executive director Frank Clemente.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">According to him, Jeff Bezos\u2019 wealth growth by $35 billion was almost the same sum that the CARES Act is spending on education programs. Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s $25 billion growth \u2013 the same amount the CARES Act is spending on improved SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or \u2018food stamps\u2019) food benefits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><em>\u201cThe \u2018Millionaires Giveaway\u2019 should be immediately repealed and the $250 billion raised used to rescue struggling families and communities,\u201d<\/em> Clemente said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Director of the IPS Program on Inequality and co-author of the Billionaire Bonanza 2020<em>\u00a0<\/em>report Chuck Collins said that the surge in billionaire wealth during a global pandemic underscores the <em>\u201cgrotesque nature of unequal sacrifice.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><em>\u201cWhile millions risk their lives and livelihoods as first responders and front-line workers, these billionaires benefit from an economy and tax system that is wired to funnel wealth to the top,\u201d<\/em> he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/business\/489466-billionaires-wealth-growth-pandemic\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While ordinary Americans face job losses and economic uncertainty, U.S. billionaire\u2019s wealth grew by $434 billion from mid-March to mid-May<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-The_Oligarchs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=207693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207695,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207693\/revisions\/207695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}