By Martha C. White - NBC News
The COVID-19 pandemic bolstered
an uneven economy that destroyed the lives, savings and small businesses
of countless citizens in the United States.
But for others, the year was not a financial disaster.
Between roughly mid-March and December 22, the
United States added 56 new billionaires
, according to the Institute for Political Studies, reaching a total of 659. The wealth of that small group has risen by more than a trillion dollars since the pandemic began.
According to a report published in December by the American Organization for Fiscal Equity and the Institute for Political Studies, using data compiled by Forbes, billionaires in the United States have amassed a wealth of nearly four trillion dollars, almost double what they have. together the 165 million poorest people in the country.
The richest 10 have a combined fortune of more than a trillion dollars.
[The United States reaches 20 million infections of COVID-19
]
This is an impressive display of how
the pandemic has distorted large sections of the real economy
and exacerbated the nation's stubborn and continuing economic inequality.
This inequality persists, in large part, for racial and ethnic reasons, and was present even in the pre-pandemic economy when unemployment figures were the lowest in half a century.
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This list of the stratospheric rich includes
household names like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Bill Gates
, as well as emerging billionaires like Kanye West and Tyler Perry.
However, these figures are notable exceptions.
Most of the
new members to the billionaire list are not household names,
and many of them have built wealth from the stock market.
MacKenzie Scott, who first made the list under her own name after divorcing Bezos in 2019, is an example of how
the market has further enriched the wealthiest
.
At the time of their divorce, Scott's share of Amazon's stock was worth about $ 38 billion.
Now, less than a year and a half later, Forbes estimates that his net worth is nearly $ 59 billion.
(Scott has made headlines in recent months for his commitment to philanthropy and generous and untethered donations to nonprofits and educational institutions.)
Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, participates in the presentation of a new Amazon Kindle in California (Archive).
AP
"The billionaires who started these companies and had a large stake in [the stock] did very well this year," said Frank Clemente, CEO of Americans for Tax Fairness.
A key factor in the concentration of wealth by billionaires was
the unprecedented response at the economic policy level
to stabilize
financial
markets
in the early days of the pandemic.
This prompted a rise in the stock market that defied the expected nosedive.
When Wall Street was on the brink of panic in March, the Federal Reserve stepped in with the promise of low rates and an open liquidity valve.
[Amazon enters the business of selling drugs]
"That gave those in the market assurance that in the face of market volatility, there would be a great driving force, and liquidity can be a salvation for most economic wounds," said Keith Buchanan, portfolio manager. from Globalt Investments.
The combination of easy money and an abrupt change in economic activity that favored digital commerce, communication, education and entrepreneurial activity gave technology companies, both
startups
and large companies, an unexpected tailwind.
"There are companies that have been left without competition, that
have benefited from the embargoes that small businesses suffered
," said Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.
"Wall Street is making big bets on who will be the winners coming out of the pandemic, and there is a group of companies that have reaped windfall profits," he added.
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Among the beneficiaries of the economy that arose from the stay-at-home orders are many of the companies that made public offerings (IPOs), which went public this year, such as Airbnb and DoorDash, as well as the top executives from these and other high-value stock market startups, such as network data storage company Snowflake.
These companies are among the new generation of billionaires of 2020.
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In 2020, 217 companies went public and
raised just over $ 78 billion
, a milestone not recorded since 2004, said Kathleen Smith, director of Renaissance Capital, an investment and research firm that developed an IPO index.
"The returns of companies that have made a public offering for sale have encouraged many other companies to go public," Smith said, adding that an exchange-traded fund his firm created to track the performance of that index has up 120% on the year.
"If investors make money, they will come back for more," he said.
Some worry that this rush of money into the tech sector is coming at the expense of America's small businesses, and they warn of the risks of concentrating economic power on a smaller base.
“You have these large groups of capital that are looking for the highest returns, the highest plays;
They are not interested in small businesses
, they are not interested in the real economy.
They're just trying to get the biggest bang for their buck, ”Collins said.
"I think we will
see
small businesses
implode
from vibrant business districts unless we reinvest in our local businesses," he added.
[2021 starts with the increase in the price of more than 300 medicines "]
Businesses with fewer than 500 employees provide nearly two-thirds of the nation's jobs and have struggled to fund their operations in a way that large companies have not.
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"We are seeing a bifurcation between multinational corporations and what small businesses live on an economic level on the ground," Buchanan said, noting that the increase in temporary business closings is becoming permanent.
"
The closures benefit large corporations
from the point of view of their market share, but that does not happen in isolation," he said.
"
There is a corporate inequality that has always been present, but now it has gotten a lot worse
," he explained.
That inequality threatens to undermine healthy competition in the market, both now and in the future, as more and more small and medium-sized companies are forced to close their doors and consolidation accelerates.
"I think it's a really worrying indicator that certain companies will have greater monopoly power," Collins said.
The gap between the haves and the have-nots
among American families has also been widened by the pandemic and will be exacerbated by job losses in small businesses.
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While pension funds and retirement plans are among the beneficiaries of the increased valuations, non-market Americans - roughly half of the nation's population -
have missed out on the gains
.
"Those who are not investors and have no savings to take advantage of this, those people have not benefited," Smith said.