COVID-19 pandemic is billionaires' bonanza
$1.1T in wealth gained just since March could fund Biden’s entire relief package, says Americans for Tax Fairness
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has seen his wealth grow sevenfold just since last March. (The Whit Online/James Duncan Davidson)
By Ted Cox
U.S. billionaires have thrived under the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study released Tuesday that suggests their immense gains in wealth just since March could fund President Biden’s entire coronavirus relief package for working families.
Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies joined in compiling and releasing the report. Drawing from data compiled by Forbes magazine, it found that 660 U.S. billionaires have seen their combined wealth grow by more than a third, 38.6 percent, or $1.1 trillion, just since last March.
The study set March 18, 2020, as the start date, as that was when Forbes released its last annual billionaires report, regularly updated in real time by the business magazine, just as the pandemic was taking hold of the U.S. economy. The 660 U.S. billionaires are now valued at $4.1 trillion combined, up from $2.9 trillion last March, when Forbes counted just 614.
“There have been 46 newly minted billionaires since the beginning of the pandemic,” Americans for Tax Fairness stated in a report released Tuesday. “At $4.1 trillion, the total wealth of America’s 660 billionaires is two-thirds higher than the $2.4 trillion in total wealth held by the bottom half of the population, 165 million Americans.”
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has seen his wealth increase more than sevenfold, from $24.6 billion last March to $191 billion in Tuesday’s Forbes real-time estimate. That closed in on Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at $193 billion as the richest American — and richest person on the planet.
Bezos saw his wealth grow by more than 60 percent, from $113 billion last March. Among the other top five U.S. billionaires, Microsoft’s Bill Gates saw a 23 percent increase to $120 billion, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg saw a 68 percent increase to $92 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffet saw a 31 percent increase to $88 billion.
“Billionaires are reaping unseemly windfalls of wealth during the pandemic,” said Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies, co-author of “Billionaire Bonanza 2020,” a report most recently issued last month looking at “pandemic profiteering and billionaire wealth.” “They benefit from having their competitors shut down or controlling technologies and services we are all dependent on in this unprecedented time. We should tax these windfall gains to pay for recovery.”
The Americans for Tax Fairness report drew parallels with the $1.1 trillion in relief proposed for working families in the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package newly proposed by President Biden. Again, that’s just in relief for working families, including $425 billion in $1,400 stimulus checks and $290 billion to provide an extra $400 a week to the unemployed. It does not include $350 billion in funding for state governments, aimed at bolstering public safety, $170 billion to enable schools to reopen, and $160 billion for COVID testing, supplies, and health-care workers.
As Americans for Tax Fairness put it: “A staggering $1.1 trillion growth in the collective wealth of America’s billionaires — a nearly 40 percent leap — during the past 10 months of national emergency could pay for all the relief for working families contained in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package proposed by President Biden, while leaving the nation’s richest households no worse off than they were before COVID-19 hit.”
“While we can all rejoice that our nation’s response to the terrible pandemic is now in steadier and more caring hands, we can only lament that America’s billionaires are not making a meaningful contribution to that national effort, even as their wealth continues to soar,” said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness. “The COVID crisis is crushing people of color and low-income workers while billionaires who are nearly all white have seen fortunes skyrocket. This is why we need the fair-share taxes program Joe Biden ran on, won on, and is now ready to pursue.”
The report also suggested that the $1.1 trillion in pandemic gains by billionaires could pay for “a stimulus check of more than $3,400 for every one of the roughly 331 million people in the United States. A family of four would receive over $13,000.”
The report concluded: “Tax reform that ensures the wealthy pay their fair share — the principle the Biden tax plan is built on — would transform a good chunk of those huge billionaire gains into public revenue to help heal a hurting nation.” But it also urged adoption of an annual tax on overall wealth — as proposed by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont — to provide a “structural change to how wealth is taxed.”