While COVID-19 disproportionately affected Australia’s most vulnerable communities, new data has found the wealth of the country’s billionaires doubled at a rate of $2376 per second during the first two years of the pandemic. Source: Pro Bono News.
This latest research from Oxfam found that since the pandemic began, a new billionaire has been created globally every 26 hours.
This happened because as the virus spread, central banks and governments injected $16 trillion into the global economy. And because of this, billionaires have seen their wealth increase by $5 trillion, rising from $8.6 trillion to $13.8 trillion since March 2021.
The report said that economic inequality made the pandemic deadlier, more prolonged, and more damaging to livelihoods.
“Inequality of income is a stronger indicator of whether you will die from COVID-19 than age,” it said.
Oxfam Australia’s public engagement executive lead, Rod Goodbun, said the biggest impact of this wealth gap was access to adequate healthcare.
He also said that access to secure housing and combating gender-based violence were all becoming harder to achieve because of this widening wealth gap.
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Pandemic bonanza for billionaires (By Maggie Coggan, Pro Bono News)
