The combined wealth of U.S. billionaires increased by $850 billion since March 18th, 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, an increase of over 28 percent.

On March 18, 2020, U.S. billionaires had combined wealth of $2.947 trillion.  By October 8th, their wealth has surged to $3.8 trillion ($3.798 billion to be exact).

The stock market has been going up and down in recent weeks with billionaires holding steady.  On September 18, total billionaire wealth was $845 billion.  Billionaires have seen huge gains over the last six months as millions of Americans have lost their jobs, health and savings, if not their lives.

At the global level, billionaires are big winners during the Covid-19 pandemic.  According to a recent UBS report, the roughly 2,189 global billionaires now have $10.2 trillion.  This is an estimated increase of $1.5 trillion during the pandemic looking at both UBS and Forbes billionaire data from 2019.

This updates our Billionaire Bonanza 2020 report that looked at “pandemic profiteers” and put forward a number of policy recommendations.  One new recommendation is for an emergency pandemic billionaire wealth tax to fund urgent health care and state and local aide.