LONDON – For Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Elon Musk of Tesla, the pandemic was good for business.
The two billionaires, like many of the world’s richest people, have become even richer since the coronavirus struck, according to a report released Monday by the international humanitarian group Oxfam.
Their experience contrasted strongly with that of the less fortunate in the world, who have been hit in difficult times and whose recovery from the pandemic could take more than a decade, according to the report entitled “The Inequality Virus.”
According to Oxfam, the world’s ten richest billionaires – including Bezos, Bill Gates of Microsoft and the CEO of the luxury group LVMH, Bernard Arnault – have jointly seen their wealth grow by $ 540 billion during this period. Oxfam based its analysis of the richest people on the Forbes billionaire list.
According to Oxfam, their increase in wealth would be more than enough to pay for a Covid-19 vaccine for everyone, which according to the organization amounts to $ 141.2 billion.
Only three of the 50 richest billionaires in the world have seen their fortunes shrink, the report said.
“I remember the financial crisis and was amazed at how quickly the billionaire fortune hit back,” said Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at Oxfam, and one of the report’s authors. ‘Then it took four to five years. But it is becoming more important for the coronavirus because it has bounced back in just nine months. None of us expected that. ”
The study was released on the opening day of the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of world, civic and business leaders, taking place online this week, rather than in Davos, Switzerland. The conference will look at how the pandemic has reformed society and the policies needed for the future.
It is likely that almost every country in the world will see an increase in inequality due to the pandemic, according to the report for the first time since records began.
It is also noted how the pandemic has unequally affected people’s health outcomes. For example, in the US, nearly 22,000 black and Hispanic people would still be alive as of December 2020 if Covid-19 mortality rates were the same as for white people.
Covid-19 is not unique in the way it has affected different populations, says Melissa Leach, director of the British Research Organization, the Institute of Development Studies.
“Epidemics have always been a mirror image of society, and it has revealed a very unequal world,” she said.
‘We are seeing an increase in wealth among very few, an increase in poverty and gaps between rich and poor. And what we have learned over many decades is that the gaps in themselves are also important because they affect not only the poor, but also the way democracies function, and the way economic policies unfold, ” she added.
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The report calls on governments to step in to close the growing gaps in inequality, and recommends taxes on prosperous, increased public spending on health care, free universal access to quality health care and permanent ‘social protection’ for the poorest in society.
“Inequalities make it harder to deliver things that any American will care about,” Leach said. “It is more difficult to have a stable society, a healthy society, a safe society, a peaceful society and a functioning democracy.”