Updates: Billionaire Wealth, U.S. Job Losses and Pandemic Profiteers

December 9, 2020 Update:  US Billionaires Total Wealth Grows to $4 Trillion –Over $1 Trillion since Beginning of Pandemic

According to a new report  by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the collective wealth of America’s 651 billionaires has jumped by over $1 trillion since roughly the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to a total of $4 trillion at market close on Monday, December 7, 2020. Combined, just the top 10 billionaires are now worth more than $1 trillion.

Their wealth growth since March is more than the $908 billion in pandemic relief proposed by a bipartisan group of members of Congress, which is likely to be the package that moves forward for a vote in the next week, but has been stalled over Republican concerns that it is too costly.

The total net worth of the nation’s 651 billionaires rose from $2.95 trillion on March 18—the rough start of the pandemic shutdowns—to $4.01 trillion on Dec. 7, a leap of 36%, based on an analysis of Forbes magazines research on billionaires. By around March 18 most federal and state economic restrictions in response to the virus were in place.

Forbes’ annual global billionaires report was published March 18, and ATF and IPS collected the real-time data on Dec. 7 from the Forbes website. The methodology of this analysis has been favorably reviewed by PolitiFact. The ATF-IPS analysis also looks at wealth growth since February 2019—the date of Forbes’ immediately previous annual billionaires report published well before the start of the pandemic and resulting market gyrations.

The $1 trillion wealth gain by 651 U.S. billionaires since mid-March is:

• More than it would cost to send a stimulus check of $3,000 to every one of the roughly 330 million people in America. A family of four would receive over $12,000. Republicans have blocked new stimulus checks from being included in the pandemic relief package.
• Double the two-year estimated budget gap of all state and local governments, which is forecast to be at least $500 billion. By June, state and local governments had already laid off 1.5 million workers and public services—especially education—faced steep budget cuts.
• Only slightly less than total federal spending on Medicare ($644 billion in 2019) and Medicaid ($389 billion in FY2019), which together serve 120 million Americans (69 million in Medicaid, 63 million in Medicare, less 12 million enrolled in both).
• Nearly four times the $267 billion total in stimulus payments made to 159 million people earlier this year.

At $4 trillion the total wealth of all U.S. billionaires today is nearly double the $2.1 trillion in total wealth held by the bottom half of the population, or 165 million Americans.…….more here

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