Over the past 3 months, 44 million US workers filed for unemployment while billionaires got $637 billion richer

• US billionaire wealth grew more than $637 billion between March 18 and June 11, according to a report published Friday by the Institute for Policy Studies think tank.
• In this 12-week period, as US states imposed coronavirus lockdowns, billionaires' total wealth grew from $2.95 trillion to $3.58 trillion — a 21.5% increase.
• In that same period, over 44 million US workers filed for unemployment, with 1.5 million claims filed in the last week alone.

Over the past three months of the coronavirus pandemic, US billionaires continued to grow in wealth as the number of unemployment claims continued to rise, according to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies think tank.

Between March 18 and June 11, total US billionaire wealth grew by $637 billion, from $2.95 trillion to $3.58 trillion — a 21.5% increase.

Their overall wealth skyrocketed by at least $72 billion this week alone.

In that same 12-week period, more than 44 million US workers filed for unemployment, with 1.5 million claims filed in the last week alone.

IPS calculated the total billionaires' wealth based on the Forbes' global billionaires list, which looks at billionaire wealth in real time.

The think tank then compared those figures to unemployment data from the US Department of Labor.

Forbes reported in its annual survey, published April 7, that total US billionaire wealth had declined from its 2019 levels. However, IPS said those losses were recovered within weeks.

According to Forbes, the US is home to 623 billionaires, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, investor Warren Buffett, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison.