(Daily Mail) American billionaires are enjoying multi-million dollar increases to their net worth as the country’s unemployment levels rise to record highs amid the coronavirus lockdowns
Eight ‘pandemic profiteers’ have seen their net worth surge by over $1billion each since the start of the global pandemic.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, 56, has added $25billion to his own wealth since January 1, 2020, as the company’s staff protest their poor working conditions and he makes a return to the company’s day-to-day running.
After initially calling the coronavirus pandemic ‘dumb’, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has also increased his net worth by $5billion despite the economic downturn
According to a report from the Institute for Policy Studies, American billionaires added $282 billion – nearly a ten percent increase – to their combined wealth between March 18 and April 10, as the U.S. unemployment rate approached 15 percent.Â
The United States billionaire class now have a combined net worth of $3.229 trillion.Â
The report was released Thursday, the same day U.S. Labor Department figures revealed that 4.4 million Americans filed a claim for unemployment benefit last week.
About one in six American workers have now lost their jobs since mid-March, by far the largest streak of US job losses on record.
