Australia’s combined economic value of billionaires has grown by more than 50% over the past year, new figures show, raising concerns that the economic downturn caused by the COVID pandemic has “super-charged” the gap between rich and poor.
Increase In The Number Of Billionaires
The combined number of Australian billionaires declined in March – when the Covid-19 limit was increased – before it doubled sharply and increased year-round, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The total number of Australian billionaires was projected to be 52.4% higher this week than in the same period last December.
By comparison, billions in the US and UK have recorded an increase of about 25% over the same period, the Bloomberg index shows.
The Reactions
Labor leader Andrew Leigh said the figures “remind us of the importance of tackling inequality, which is much higher in Australia than in the past”.
“That increase is staggering,” a deputy minister of the Treasury and civil society organizations told the Guardian Australia.
“Any of your readers would be punching the air if they had enjoyed a 20% increase in their wealth, and they would be double fist-pumping the air if they had a 50% increase, and yet that’s the story for the typical Australian billionaire.”
By contrast, Leigh said, regular families were already doing it tough before Covid hit. He cited “anaemic” wage growth, home ownership being at its lowest level in six decades and household debt skyrocketing.
“The fact is that for those who are struggling this year, this has been a very difficult year and 2021 will be a rough year indeed,” he said.
“Recessions often worsen inequality but this one seems to have turbocharged the gap. High-paid workers can more easily work from home than low-paid workers.
“While wealthy Australians are able to ride a stock rollercoaster, more than one million people with insufficient assets have spent money on over-gambling.”
Bloomberg News says it tracks the personal fortune of a billion dollars in terms of market and economic movements and its own reporting. The indicator uses prices that are converted to US dollars.
Leigh said that although the wage subsidy for workers may have little effect on Bloomberg’s figures, he reaffirmed his concern that the program aimed at assisting strikers had “ended up with the fundraisers of millionaires”.
He said many Australian financiers, including Solomon Lew, had companies that had paid heavily after receiving taxpayers’ subsidies. Critics have called the design issue a “share divider”.
It has previously been reported that Lew will invest $ 24.25m in dividends after his trading capital, Premier Investments, received about $ 70m in wage grants during the coronavirus crisis.
But Lew said in September that the Prime Minister’s budget payment had nothing to do with workers’ subsidies and was based on “trade only”.
Meanwhile, people who are receiving unemployment benefits due to a reduction in their salaries from January 1, when the government continues to reduce the number of coronavirus introduced to raise pay for job seekers.
The two-week extension of coronavirus will be reduced from its current $ 250 level to $ 150 for the next three months.
The government says the top support has always been meant to be temporary.
The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, said the Coalition had passed major pieces of legislation over the past year “to cushion the blow of the Covid-19 pandemic, keeping Australians in jobs, businesses in business and sparking a faster-than-anticipated economic recovery”.
In a statement issued on Monday, Frydenberg said jobkeeper had been “an economic lifeline to millions of Australians”. He cited Reserve Bank analysis released in November indicating that it had saved at least 700,000 jobs.
