Win-Win for the Rich

 While Trump and top members of his administration continue push for another round of tax cuts to rich investors, a new analysis published Tuesday by the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness showed that U.S. billionaires have seen their collective wealth soar by nearly $800 billion since Covid-19 began spreading rapidly across the country in March.

The research found that between March 18 and August 20—a five-month period in which the economy tanked and tens of millions of people across the U.S. lost their jobs—the combined wealth of America's more than 600 billionaires jumped by $792 billion, bringing their collective net worth to a staggering $3.7 trillion.

"For billionaires, this is a heads we win, tails you lose economy, boosted by Trump policies to funnel wealth to the top," Chuck Collins, director of the IPS Program on Inequality, said. He explained that just 12 U.S. billionaires now own more than a trillion dollars in combined wealth is "an unprecedented and disturbing indicator of the concentrated wealth during a pandemic." According to IPS, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos—the richest man in the world—has seen his wealth grow by $81.9 billion since mid-March, a bigger jump than any other U.S. billionaire.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/26/trump-pushes-new-tax-cuts-wealthy-analysis-shows-us-billionaires-800-billion-richer