During the COVID-19 pandemic there was a huge toll on humanity all across the globe with the few benefitting from the pandemic profits. As the world shut down to prevent the spread of the virus there were massive repercussions for the everyone involved. From isolation a wide range of health effects were felt by people worldwide including declining mental health, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, stress, and depression. There was a huge drop on growth during the pandemic for every nation causing lower gross domestic product overall.
As the general groups of people suffered there were some who actually benefitted highly from the lockdowns. Some may call it the pandemic profits as the richest individuals made humongous income during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology companies, billionaires, and the top 1% were able to rake in millions of dollars while others were in pain. Many lost their loved ones in the hospitals who they weren’t even able to say goodbye to properly due to strict COVID laws enforced by the government.
While others like Gavin Newsom met indoors with friends celebrating a birthday party including some from the medical association at restaurant. Another example would be Nancy Pelosi scheduling an indoor visit to a hair salon to get her hair done without a mask. Its a massive smack to every American’s face to see their leaders shouting COVID-19 regulations while completely ignoring it themselves. Many stated the quote “rules for thee, but not for me.” While the people suffered others gained millions of dollars from the pandemic profits, its important to know where all the money actually went to. Lets start with world renown
Pfizer and Moderna Pandemic Profits
It’s a major understatement to say that Pfizer and Moderna made pandemic profits, as they were able to change their companies forever. They didn’t just make major profits, but they ballooned their companies into some of the biggest growth we’ve ever seen. Keep in mind that nothing is free, Americans who received the vaccines and boosters were allowing the companies to make billions of dollars pretending its free. The money mostly came from government funding or in other words your money…..the taxpayers paid for the vaccine doses.
The range of payments have increased over time and early on the doses from both the manufactures ranged around $20 per dose. With time and development of new updated doses the cost increased to Pfizer at $30 per dose and Moderna at $26 per dose. America’s federal government paid for over a billion vaccine doses allowing the companies to profit over $25 billion dollars simply by the United States.
Pfizer was able to rake in $100 billion dollars and Moderna obtained around $37 billion dollars in profits for their COVID-19 Vaccine. This monetary income is massive, but its important to note that both companies spent money on the research and development of the vaccines. Regardless of their losses it appears the US taxpayer is paying for every single person’s shot during the pandemic raking billions of pandemic profits to the companies.
Billionaires, Top 1%, and Pandemic Profits
It wasn’t only the COVID-19 vaccine makers who made pandemic profits, but the entirety of wealthy individuals. It appears that in the first two years of the pandemic from 2020 to 2022 there was an increase of $42 trillion dollars in new wealth. The substantial question to ask has to do with how much of the money ended up in the hands of regular citizens. Those who work 9-5 jobs and are doing the best they can to support their families.
Over 66% of the wealth which is around $28 trillion dollars ended up in the hands who do not require the wealth to continue their lifestyles. In essence the rich became much richer during the pandemic. This may be coincidence, a conspiracy, or simply the fact that stocks dived during the pandemic and later ballooned to massive rates. For example, if a stock is worth $10 and an average person can buy 10 shares or $100 dollars worth of the stock and it grows to $20 a share they have just doubled their money. Now the person has $200 and has doubled their wealth in the stock.
Now lets imagine a millionaire is able to buy 4000 shares or $40,000 worth of the $10 stock. which turns into a $20 stock. They doubled their money too just like you, but their payout is $40,000 compared to your $100. Insider trading can have played a role allowing for a mild conspiracy in the works. Lets just say if billionaires provide campaign contributions to our public officials and they notified them of the potential lockdowns. This allows them to sell high and buy again at a low giving them massive profits. Billionaires worth during the pandemic had increased by $5 trillion dollars alone which is an unprecedented surge which hasn’t been witnessed for over a decade and a half. Now if this isn’t considered pandemic profits it would be difficult to say what is.
Much of the pandemic profits were caused by central banks, money printing, and increasing home prices and stock prices. As the top 1% of the richest people alive have large amounts of money they could invest much of their money compared to an average Joe. This allowed them to take hold of stocks and home prices when they were low right after the pandemic hit the rest of the world. Much of these trillions of dollars pumped into the United States economy was to save it, but the majority of it ended up back into the wealthiest hands. A final aspect of the pandemic profits included the tech industry with Apple, Microsoft, and Google to name a few gaining billions of dollars of profits during the pandemic.
Average Americans and Pandemic Profits
Now since trillions were pumped into the economy did that allow the average person to gain the same pandemic profits. The short term answer is yes as relief checks and lockdowns caused a dual partnership to increase the savings of Americans. The long term answer is a redounding no as the relief checks discontinued and inflation took hold of the United States economy. Much of this will be looked at during our deep dive of the pandemic profits.
As Americans were locked inside their homes it caused them to generally spend less. This coupled with relief checks allowed individuals income throughout the pandemic. What happened during this time? Credit card balances of Americans was increasing to an all-time high before the pandemic hit at $840 billion dollars and savings were kept at around 8% to 10%. After the pandemic hit it allowed individuals to pay off their high credit card debt which lowered it to around $740 billion dollars and savings increase to around 30%. As Americans were locked away in their homes they decided to pay off their much needed credit card debt. This is the short term answer of the pandemic profits and the average Americans.
Now the long term answer gets a little trickier with inflation added to the picture due to high pumping of the United States dollar into the economy. America essentially added $13 trillion dollars into the bucket which is considered a 35% increase. With all this new money it caused the prices of everything to increase from home prices, stocks, and of course our daily goods and services. As the COVID-19 pandemic came to an end it seems that credit card debt increased to $940 billion dollars and average Americans savings dwindled to 3% to 5%. In essence the estimates state that prior to the pandemic and now our savings decreased by over half and our personal debt increased by $100 billion dollars.
A lot of this occurrence is also caused by the end of the lockdowns giving people the ability to go out and spend money again. Except this time without any sort of relief checks coming into the mail. An additional aspect of this issue is that small businesses including mom and pop restaurants had difficulty making sales during the lockdowns. Of course some revenue came through take-out orders and deliveries the money was still extremely difficult to obtain for those businesses that didn’t utilize those methods. After America locked down and they weren’t allowed to open to the public, these businesses were then hit with inflationary prices with many having to increase the cost of their goods. The pandemic profits were good for a short time for the average Joe, but in the long run caused increased struggle.
Conclusion
Essentially, pandemic profits benefitted everyone during the short term duration of the pandemic, but caused much wider issues over time. The majority of the profits were given to the pharmaceutical companies, the top 1%, and tech giants. They were able to hold onto their money and invested heavily during the pandemic with inflated stocks, buying options, real estate, and creating a vaccines funded by the American taxpayer.
The average American’s debt has increased after the pandemic and their savings have quickly dwindled. Contributed due to the fact that inflation has caused massive increases in prices from building supplies, gas, food, and more. This has caused the economy to move passed the common person giving the wealthier groups and individuals billions of dollars to play with. In this day and age much of the United States populous is having difficulty with the new normal. This new normal includes weighing our cost benefit strategies to penny pinch what we have left. As inflation increased the common job’s salary has not met with the higher rates of losing money. While the wealthy organizations and elite get to enjoy the spoils of the pandemic profits the rest are left with a major question involving survival.