A new billionaire every 30 hours: Wealth increased for the richest during pandemic
As a nation, we have been dealing with financial issues since the pandemic began; however, this has not been the case for everyone. New data is being reported based off economic reports around the world. Here’s an interesting article below from Marina Pitofsky with USA TODAY talking about the results.
A new billionaire reached the 10-figure financial status an average of once every 30 hours during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to a new analysis from Oxfam.
The report, released by the international organization focused on fighting poverty, said 573 people became new billionaires during the pandemic.
But the organization noted in a statement on Monday that this year it expects “263 million more people will crash into extreme poverty, at a rate of a million people every 33 hours.”
The combined wealth of billionaires worldwide is equivalent to 13.9% of global GDP, according to the organization. More than 2,600 billionaires own approximately $12.7 trillion, and the analysis states that the world’s richest 20 billionaires are worth more than the entire GDP of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
It also cites billionaires and corporations in the food, energy, pharmaceutical and technology sectors raking in some of the most significant wealth.
The organization used financial figures from Forbes’ billionaire list from March 2020 to March 2022 to analyze the wealth of the richest people around the world.
The release of the analysis coincided with the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Corporate executives, government officials and some of the wealthiest people in the world are attending the event in person this year after a two-year hiatus because of the pandemic.
