The wealth of the 10 richest people in the world combined increased by US$540 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to an Oxfam report, the 10 rich include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla boss Elon Musk, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Quoting from the BBC, Friday (20/8/2021) Oxfam revealed that with this amount of money it is estimated that it can prevent the world from falling into poverty because of the virus, and pay for all COVID-19 vaccines.
Then, Oxfam also noted that in December 2020, the total wealth of billionaires around the world reached US $ 11.95 trillion, equivalent to the recovery spending of all G20 governments. To that end, his party urged the government to consider taxes on the super-rich.
Stock Market Boosts Wealth
Oxfam expects the wealth of the billionaires to increase due to stock market recovery and global economic injustice. That led to rising inequality during the worst economic downturn in a century due to the pandemic.
Then, the report also says that Bezos’ fortune has gone up so much between March-September 2020 that he was able to give all 876,000 Amazon employees a $105,000 bonus. Even so, he is still rich from before the pandemic until now.
Oxfam estimates that between 200-500 million more people will live in poverty by 2020. This is a huge gap with conglomerates rising in wealth.
Rich people who Donate
Nevertheless, the UBS report, 209 millionaires to donate cash of $ 7.2 billion in order to combat the pandemic COVID-19.
Not only that, MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife, revealed she has donated more than $4 billion to food banks and emergency relief funds in four months.
In June last year, Bezos had donated $125 million to fight the pandemic. Then, Twitter boss Jack Dorsey in April donated $1 billion of his assets to support pandemic relief efforts and other causes.
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has also donated £1 million to help the homeless and those affected by domestic violence during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is chaired by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his ex-wife Melinda, is said to be donating a total of US$1.75 billion for the COVID-19 response to the development and delivery of vaccines and COVID-19 tests.
