Nearly 100 new people achieved billionaire status in the US during the pandemic
- Of the almost 500 new billionaires globally, nearly 100 of them are in the US.
- This comes amid a devastating pandemic that plunged 3.3 million more people into poverty.
While the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the globe and 37.2 million people in the US lived below the poverty line in 2020 - marking an increase of 3.3 million people from the year prior - 98 people in the US were added to the Forbes World's Billionaires list.
A total of 493 newcomers achieved billionaire status globally since the start of the pandemic, Insider reported in April.
There are 724 US billionaires total (out of 2,755 billionaires globally), and their wealth amounts to $4.4 trillion - $2 trillion more than last year, according to Forbes.
New additions to the list include reality TV star Kim Kardashian, filmmaker Tyler Perry, pop star and entrepreneur Rihanna, Apple CEO Tim Cook, casino owner Miriam Adelson, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel.
The Biden administration found the top 400 wealthiest billionaires pay an estimated 8% in federal individual income taxes between 2010 and 2018, which is lower than the average working household.
Democratic lawmakers briefly proposed a billionaires' tax this week, but quickly ditched the effort.
On Tuesday, the former US Secretary of Labor and University of California, Berkeley professor, Robert Reich said "it would take a typical worker more than 800,000 years to earn what Elon Musk made yesterday. Yet Musk warns that a billionaire tax would eventually raise taxes on everyone else?"
Reich was referring to the growth of the Tesla CEO's net worth after the company reached a market cap of $1 trillion the day before.