Did billionaire wealth nearly triple one year during COVID?

While billionaire wealth surged dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, it did not nearly triple in a single year. 

Data from March 2020 to early 2021 show that the combined wealth of the world’s more than 2,500 billionaires rose from approximately $8 trillion to over $13 trillion, an increase of roughly 68%. This was due in part to a strong stock market, returns of profits to shareholders and, in the case of billionaires like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, a shift to online shopping during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the pandemic disproportionately affected ordinary people, pushing over 150 million more people into poverty, causing massive job losses and reducing women’s earnings by $800 billion in 2020. 

Advocates and organizations like Oxfam have highlighted this disparity, calling for wealth taxes on pandemic-era gains to fund vaccinations, social protections and economic recovery, underscoring the extreme inequality exacerbated during the crisis.