How much did billionaires add to their fortunes during the pandemic?

Ten billionaires double their fortune in pandemic 1:11

(CNN Business) --

Billionaires added $5 trillion to their fortunes during the pandemic, according to Oxfam, exacerbating economic inequality as the pandemic pushed millions of people around the world into poverty.

Using data compiled by Forbes, Oxfam says in a new report that the total wealth of billionaires jumped from $8.6 trillion in March 2020 to $13.8 trillion in November 2021, a bigger increase than in 14 years. above combined.

The 10 richest men in the world saw their collective wealth more than double, rising by $1.3 billion a day.

The report was released ahead of the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda, which takes place this week after the group's in-person annual meeting was delayed due to omicron.

Oxfam argues that governments should tax the profits made by the super-rich during the pandemic and use the money to fund health care systems, pay for vaccines, fight discrimination and tackle the climate crisis.

"Billionaires have had a terrible pandemic. Central banks pumped trillions of dollars into the financial markets to save the economy, but much of that ended up lining the pockets of billionaires who were experiencing a stock market boom," he said. Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam, in a press release.

From left to right, from top: Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Ballmer, Larry Ellison, Bernard Arnault, Sergey Brin, Larry Page.

The combined wealth of the top 10 billionaires, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, doubled during the pandemic and is now six times that of the world's 3.1 billion poorest people. , according to the report.

• As millions fell into poverty during the pandemic, the wealth of billionaires soared

"Inequality at such a rate and scale occurs by choice, not by chance," Bucher said.

"Not only have our economic structures made us all less secure against this pandemic, they are actively allowing those who are already extremely wealthy and powerful to exploit this crisis for their own gain."

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The pandemic has not been the "great equalizer" that some predicted.

The World Bank estimates that 97 million people worldwide fell into extreme poverty in 2020 and now live on less than $2 a day.

The number of the world's poorest also increased for the first time in more than 20 years.

Vaccine inequality has become a major problem, with many of the world's richest countries stockpiling vaccines, buying enough doses to vaccinate their populations multiple times over, and failing to keep promises to share them with the developing world.

Billionaires are asked to use their wealth to help those less fortunate.

David Beasley, director of the United Nations World Food Programme, urged billionaires including Bezos and Musk to "step up now, one time only" to help solve world hunger in November.

The call received a direct response from Musk, who later said on Twitter that if the organization could explain "exactly how" the funding would solve the problem, "I would sell Tesla stock right now and do it."

The CEO did not respond publicly when the UN released a plan.

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