US Billionaires’ Net Worth up $434 Billion Since Shutdown Start

We're all in this together!

The number of U.S. citizens filing for unemployment increased to 38.6 million since March 18, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Over the same two months, the wealth of U.S. billionaires has surged $434 billion – an increase of 15 percent.

The combined fortunes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg alone grew by nearly $60 billion during these two months, according to a new analysis, jointly released by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, which released Billionaire Bonanza 2020 in April to examine billionaire wealth during the first month of the pandemic.

Between March 18 and May 19, the total net worth of the 600-plus U.S. billionaires rose from $2.948 trillion to $3.382 trillion. In March, there were 614 billionaires on the Forbes list. There are 630 two months later, including newcomer Kanye West at $1.3 billion.

Among other COVID-19 victims are the more than 16 million Americans who have likely lost employer-provided healthcare coverage. Low-wage workerspeople of color and women have suffered disproportionately in the combined medical and economic crises. Billionaires are overwhelmingly white men.

Wealth growth of other select billionaires in the top 30 on the Forbes May 19 list are below.

Sources: All data analyzed by ATF and IPS is from Forbes and available here.
March 18, 2020, data is from the Forbes World’s Billionaires List: The Richest in 2020.
May 19, 2020 data was taken from Forbes real-time estimates of worth that day.

5 Comments
  1. cechas vodobenikov says

    “amerika has always been of, by and for the rich”. Gore Vidal…an article today observes that since Covid fascism, more suicides have been recorded in the SF bay area than c19 related fatalities

    1. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

      We’re all in this together. Hahaha. That’s just hilarious. There should be riots and blood in the streets but Americans are morons.

      Land of the free and home of the brave my ass.

  2. voza0db says

    This is just a small delicacy!

    On the last Great Wealth Transfer Operation of 2007/8 and beyond they achieved a good Transfer!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/676cd0519e9780cde4c55b2faab0cab2bc8b7d30a77e743d9c9b30405c356c5a.jpg

    Today the Transfer will continue but it’s just a side effect of OPERATION COVID. And it’s a natural and expected event as the number of deaths and reduction of the Herd of Morons increases so does the Transfer of Wealth.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a28fb868000d3f177093240d77543b6271f343a77a8eac5f5c4d9ca99ad7b940.jpg

    ALL IS GOOD in Their Planet…

    As for me and you…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d55901b39128e54c709224ef58eaa2fb08b70912ecece0e905b458574fbc5e82.jpg

    Because clearly we don’t want to do anything else!

  3. Rowdy-Yates says

    Between March 18 and May 19, the total net worth of the 600-plus U.S. billionaires rose from $2.948 trillion to $3.382 trillion. In March, there were 614 billionaires on the Forbes list. There are 630 two months later, including newcomer Kanye West at $1.3 billion.
    WOW! The plunder of America … incredible. There is no worse enemy in any part of the world than America’s own. Zucky has a very big nose.

    1. sabateur says

      so lucky those billies don’t go global!

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