According to a recent report, American billionaires have enjoyed a huge boost in net worth in the first two months of the Chinese virus pandemic, earning around $434 billion since March 19, when many states went into lockdown.
According to a new report published by left-leaning think tanks Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, as many Americans struggle with financial hardship due to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, U.S. billionaires have actually seen an increase in their net worth by approximately $434 billion, Business Insider reports.
Forbes reports that 623 billionaires live in the United States, this includes Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, investor Warren Buffett, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The report from the think tanks alleges that just those five billionaires alone saw their wealth increase by 19 percent, or approximately $75.5 billion.
Approximately 600 U.S. billionaires saw their wealth from $2.948 trillion to $3.382 trillion within just two months. Americans for Tax Fairness executive director Frank Clemente said in the report: “The pandemic has revealed the deadly consequences of America’s yawning wealth gap, and billionaires are the glaring symbol of that economic inequality.”
Clemente added: “Post-pandemic, the rich and corporations must begin to pay their fair share of taxes so we can build a society that works for everyone, not just billionaires and others at the top.”
This week, U.S. weekly jobless claims reached 2.4 million bringing the nine-week total to nearly 39 million.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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