You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

As Millions Lose Jobs, the Billionaire Class Sees Wealth Soar by $434 Billion During Pandemic

HeadlineMay 22, 2020

New data from the Census Bureau found nearly half of all American adults say they or a member of their household had lost employment income since mid-March. But not all Americans have suffered. One new report found the wealth of the nation’s billionaires has increased by $434 billion, or 15%, since the pandemic began. This is Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Chuck Collins: “Since March 18th, 38.5 million people have filed for unemployment. Over that same two months, billionaire wealth has surged — $434 billion in that short time. And we’re seeing the billionaire class in the United States, overall, seeing their wealth accelerate in the last couple months. Even Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth combined has gone up $60 billion since March 18th.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top