(ORDO NEWS) — As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem of social inequality in the world. More than 160 million people live below the poverty line.
However, this deterioration of the situation did not affect everyone. The 10 richest people in the world have doubled their wealth. Who are they?
While the entire world has been hit financially by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 10 richest people in the world have doubled their wealth, according to a report by Oxfam, a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting poverty.
How are rich and poor living during COVID-19?
The study revealed a global disparity between the rich and the lower classes. The top 10 richest people, including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, increased their combined salaries from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion between March 2020 and November 2021, according to official data from a report released on Monday. of the year. The study was not subject to peer review.
Meanwhile, those who fell below the top percentile of income – 99% of the world’s population – experienced a decline in income over the same time period, according to a report based on data compiled by the World Bank. To make matters worse, the report details that more than 160 million people have been forced into poverty.
Previously unpublished records note that the richest avoid income tax. However, Elon Musk says he will pay more than $11 billion in taxes this year.
“Billionaires have survived an amazing pandemic,” said Gabriela Bucher, chief executive of Oxfam International. “Central banks pumped trillions of dollars into financial markets to bail out the economy, but most of that ended up in the pockets of stock market booming billionaires.”
Bucher noted in an Oxfam report that a large gap has “deadly” consequences, as many low-income housewives are unable to pay for health care. Oxfam is pushing for a tax on the rich to start “correcting the cruel wrongs of this obscene inequality.”
Who are the wealthy billionaires during the pandemic?
Oxfam, based on Forbes data, calculated the increase in wealth according to its methodology, as a result of which it turned out that the 10 richest people doubled their wealth in real time.
According to Forbes, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is the richest person in the world for 2021 with $268 billion, while Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos came in second with $188 billion and third place went to Bernard Arnault with $187 billion. dollars.
The richest include Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page. The report also noted other billionaires – Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffett. Their income is between 116 and 117 billion dollars.
According to Oxfam, this is 6 times more wealth than the poorest segments of the population (3 billion people). It also notes that if the poor were to spend $1 billion a day, it would take them approximately 415 years to spend that fortune.
Much of Oxfam’s research follows the trends of the US stock market, which has risen sharply since March 2020 due to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.
This has opened the way to huge, tax-free wealth gains for the wealthy, while leaving no room for those with no market share to profit. A ProPublica report states that secret files have been obtained that show many never-before-seen records describing how the world’s richest avoid income taxes.
Gabriela Bucher believes that it is necessary to impose a tax on the capital of the world’s richest people, thereby helping health care and social protection.
It was also proposed to abandon intellectual property in favor of the development of vaccine technologies against coronavirus infection COVID-19.
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