The pandemic, a bonanza for rich Latin Americans that deepens poverty

The wealth of billionaires in Latin America has increased by 52% since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, while the poor have been more exposed to deaths from COVID-19, according to the report “Inequalities kill”, presented by Oxfam.

The report is published amid the overwhelming progress of infections by the omicron variant, which means that the most needy population worsens their situation, while large capitals continue to grow.

Between March 2020 and November 2021, according to the document, the wealth of the wealthiest in Latin America and the Caribbean increased by US$97 billion, or 52%.

Central banks have pumped billions of dollars into financial markets to save the economy, but much of it has ended up in the pockets of billionaires, who have taken advantage of booming stock markets, the study says.

Done is not enough

“The pandemic has definitely been a bonanza opportunity for the richest people in the region,” said the regional director of programs for Oxfam in Latin America and the Caribbean, Gloria García.

In contrast, the rest of the population has seen, without being able to do anything, their income drastically decrease, especially since millions have lost their jobs.

Despite the fact that Oxfam recognizes the efforts of governments to support people with economic aid, they “have not taken sufficient measures to protect their population, to be able to provide them with the social protection that would have been required during this time.”

Weak protection systems

Latin America is the region most affected by the pandemic because despite having 8.4% of the world’s population, it has “put 30% of the dead, that is, we have a million and a half people who have died and that means the 30% of global deaths,” says García.

This means that the protection systems in Latin America “are weaker than those of the majority or those of the rest of the world,” says the official.

The figures also show that almost twice as many people die in Latin American countries than in rich countries, precisely because health systems do not provide adequate care to the sick and because “vaccines have arrived later with a distribution that is not always It has been fair.”

García also indicated that the hardest hit by COVID-19 are women and that parity with men is going to take longer because in Latin America they have lost their jobs and that makes that possibility far away.

“This parity is going to take another 135 years, that is to say, that path we were on was delayed and that was not at all encouraging, that has made our times considerably worse to overcome inequality,” he pointed out.

tax wealth

For Oxfam, one of the ways to solve the crisis that the world is going through due to the pandemic is to tax large capitals with a kind of “solidarity tax”, a mechanism that humanity has already used to get out of complex economic situations derived from the world wars.

“This is an exceptional situation, it is a global situation in which a few people have earned a lot of money and what is proposed is to tax that wealth,” he said.

That tax on capital would be enough to pay for vaccines for the whole world, strengthen health systems and to develop protection and mitigation actions against climate change in the most affected areas of the planet, he adds.

“We are talking about a single tax, not even an issue that is progressive and that is going to be permanent,” Garcia points out.

There are resources, there is a lack of political decision

According to this global network of non-governmental organizations, the current situation resulting from the pandemic should not focus so much on the lack of money, since the resources are there.

García says that what has been lacking is “a political decision” because in the most critical moments the governments have found funds to get out of the most precarious situations.

“These measures should be more substantial, they should be much more structural, they should be maintained in the long term, regardless of whether or not that represents votes in the future,” he concludes.