While the Middle-Class Shrank, Billionaires Grew Their Net Worth by $341 Billion

Though the petty tyrant-created lockdowns took a wrecking ball to small businesses and the middle class, America’s oligarchs have done quite well.

In fact, during the course of the pandemic, during which thousands of small businesses were closed and middle-class lives ruined, billionaires increased their net worth by a collective $341 billion.

That figure comes from CNBC, which reports that “Combined, the 10 richest billionaires added $402.17 billion to their net worths in 2021. They were led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who this year became the world’s richest man and briefly saw his net worth top $300 billion. He added $121 billion to his net worth in 2021 — just shy of the $140 billion he added in 2020.”

Of those top ten billionaires, seven are Americans. They are Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Steve Ballmer, Larry Elison, and Warren Buffett. And those seven were able to fill their coffers with even more cash, adding a massive $341 billion to their net worths.

While Elon came in first with an addition of about $121 billion to his net worth, the others still did quite well for themselves.

Bezos, for example, increased his net worth by about $5 billion. Bill Gates, meanwhile, increased his by $7 billion, Larry Page increased his by $47 billion, and Mark Zuckerberg increased his by $24 billion.

Meanwhile, the middle class saw a devastating plummet in its wealth, with the top 1% now holding more wealth than all of the middle class. As Breitbart reported:

the top one percent of income earners in the U.S. now hold more wealth than the entire American middle class. Specifically, the middle class has seen its share of national wealth plummet to just 26.6 percent while the top one percent’s share of wealth has grown to 27 percent — the first time in U.S. history that the top one percent’s share of wealth has outpaced the middle class’s share of wealth.

While some of that is certainly thanks to the great talents of the billionaires, with Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg all having created excellent companies, whatever their other flaws, some of the disparity is also due to darker facts.

The wealthiest, for example, pay a lower tax rate than their fellows. Similarly, corporatist, pro-Big Business policies, such as lockdown rules that shuttered small businesses while letting big box stores remain open, have added to the wealth of the wealthiest while grinding down the middle class.

By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.