Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the press has run stories about billionaires seeing their wealth vanish.
In late February, even before the outbreak forced mass closures and disruption, Bloomberg reported that the world’s richest had lost a total of $444 billion. Later on, Barron’s put the number at $408 billion over just two months.
Billionaires did not cause this pandemic. But four decades of billionaire tax cuts have increased the fragility of the public response infrastructure.
In its annual spring survey of global billionaires, published April 7, Forbes pegged the pandemic as a great equalizer. “The world’s richest are not immune to the devastating impact of the coronavirus,” noted Kerry Dolan, Forbes assistant managing editor of wealth.
Such pronouncements are proving premature. A new report that we helped produce for the Institute for Policy Studies concludes that billionaires as a group are actually seeing their wealth increase during this crisis.
By April 10, barely three weeks after the period covered by Forbes, we found that U.S. billionaire wealth had surged to $3.2 trillion, surpassing its 2019 level.
Driving this surge are a host of “pandemic profiteers” — at least eight billionaires who’ve seen their wealth grow by more than $1 billion so far this year, even as the U.S. unemployment rate has soared past 20 percent.
Heading the pack is Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, whose private wealth has increased $25 billion since January 1. Other profiteers have capitalized on America’s urgent need for video conferencing, including Zoom CEO Eric Yuan and Microsoft shareholder Steve Ballmer.
All this occurs against a backdrop of wealth that’s been concentrating and skyrocketing for decades. Since 1990, we found, billionaire wealth has soared 1,130 percent — more than 200 times greater than the meager growth in U.S. median income over the same period.
Are billionaires paying this wealth forward? A few, to be sure, have stepped up.
Hedge fund billionaire David Tepper, whose wealth has surged over $700 million since the beginning of 2020, has donated $22 million to coronavirus relief efforts, while calling on his fellow billionaires to give more.
Generosity is important. But we shouldn’t be bamboozled by billionaire charity. Tepper’s $22 million gift is roughly 0.183 percent of his $12 billion fortune — equivalent to a family of median net worth giving a bit less than $200.
More to the point, billionaires have used their considerable political clout over the decades to reduce their tax obligations, shifting expenses onto the rest of us. Between 1980 and 2018, as our report details, billionaire taxes declined 79 percent as a percentage of their wealth.
Billionaires did not cause this pandemic. But four decades of billionaire tax cuts have increased the fragility of the public response infrastructure. A little charity is no substitute for billionaires paying their fair share of taxes for vital expenses like a responsive public health system and emergency preparedness.
At some point, Congress will take up the question of how to pay for the trillions in deficit spending deployed toward recovery. Middle and working-class families — the people actually hurting — shouldn’t be on the hook for this.
Instead, America’s flourishing billionaires should be asked to step up with more than their charitable checkbooks. As their wealth continues to balloon, it’s time for them to pay their fair share.