The Billionaire class continues to profit during the COVID-19 pandemic, like Hank & Doug Meijer

The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) published their most recent findings on how the billionaire class continue to make massive profits during the current health crisis and while there is a national uprising against White Supremacy. 

America’s billionaires saw their wealth increase by 20%, or $584 billion, roughly since the beginning of the pandemic, as 45.5 million Americans lost their jobs and the economy cratered.

The findings from IPS also state:

“This orgy of wealth shows how fundamentally flawed our economic system is,” said Frank Clemente, ATF’s executive director. “In three months about 600 billionaires increased their wealth by far more than the nation’s governors say their states need in fiscal assistance to keep delivering services to 330 million residents. Their wealth increased twice as much as the federal government paid out in one-time checks to more than 150 million Americans. If this pandemic reveals anything, it’s how unequal our society has become and how drastically it must change.”

Most people are familiar with the Jeff Bezos and the Bill Gates of the world, both of which made billions in the last three months. Jeff Bezos made $43 billion during the last three months and Bill Gates made $11 billion during that time, despite the fact that millions of people across the US are unemployed, are facing eviction and don’t know what the immediate future holds in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the wealthiest families in Michigan is also on that billionaire list – Hank & Doug Meijer. According to the Forbes Richest list for 2020, Hank & Doug Meijer are the 173rd richest people in the US. The wealth of the two Meijer brothers has increased by $500 million since the beginning of the year. Imagine making $500 million over the past 6 months. Just let that sink in for a moment. 

Now consider this, what if that $500 million that Hank & Doug Meijer made in the past 6 months went to the families in Grand Rapids that are experiencing poverty? The thousands of families in this community would have enough money to pay their mortgage, their rent, purchase healthy food, take care of the health care costs, pay for utilities and have plenty left over. This would still leave Hank & Doug Meijer with $9.5 billion. Now, in what world is this kind of wealth justified when so many people are struggling to survive? Another world is possible!