EDITOR'S NOTE: The pandemic has brought tough economic times to everyone in the world. Well, almost everyone. The Economic Times reports that "the share of household wealth owned by billionaires has risen by a record amount during the pandemic, with millionaires also coming out of COVID-19 ahead." The lead author of the World Inequality Report that published this information, Lucas Chancel, says, "The COVID crisis has exacerbated inequalities between the very wealthy and the rest of the population." The authors also noted that this is a bad sign for the future, writing, "Since wealth is a major source of future economic gains, and increasingly, of power and influence, this presages further increases in inequality," because of the "extreme concentration of economic power in the hands of a very small minority of the super-rich".
LONDON: The share of household wealth owned by billionaires has risen by a record amount during the pandemic, with millionaires also coming out of COVID-19 ahead, a study found on Tuesday.
The World Inequality Report produced by a network of social scientists estimated that billionaires this year collectively own 3.5% of global household wealth, up from slightly above 2% at the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
"The COVID crisis has exacerbated inequalities between the very wealthy and the rest of the population," lead author Lucas Chancel said, noting that rich economies used massive fiscal support to mitigate the sharp rises in poverty seen elsewhere.
The report drew on a variety of specialist research and public domain data, with a foreword written by U.S.-based economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two of the trio who won a 2019 Nobel for work on poverty.
"Since wealth is a major source of future economic gains, and increasingly, of power and influence, this presages further increases in inequality," they wrote of what they called an "extreme concentration of economic power in the hands of a very small minority of the super-rich".
Forbes' annual world's billionaires list this year included a record-breaking 2,755 billionaires with a combined worth of $13.1 trillion, up from $8 trillion last year.
The new report showed that a wider group of 520,000 adults who make up the top 0.01% richest together saw their share of global wealth hit 11% this year, up from 10% the year before.
Belonging to the top 0.01% category meant having household wealth of at least 16.7 million euros ($19 million), adjusted for purchasing power parity across currencies, it said.
The study also found that while poverty increased sharply in countries with weaker welfare coverage, massive government support in the United States and Europe was able to mitigate at least some of that impact on lower earners there.
"This shows the importance of social states in the fight against poverty," Chancel said.
Separately, it welcomed this year's deal https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/what-is-global-minimum-tax-deal-what-will-it-mean-2021-10-08 on a global minimum corporation tax rate of 15% as a possible milestone in efforts to halt a "race to the bottom" which since the mid-1980s has led to a halving of average company tax rates to around 24%.
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