The pandemic has worsened income inequality, with the world's richest people regaining their losses from COVID-19 shutdowns in nine months while the number of people living in poverty has doubled to more than 500 million, according to a new report from the anti-poverty group Oxfam. Almost 9% of total working hours were lost last year when compared with the levels of employment at the end of 2019, before the pandemic shuttered the economy, according to a separate report from the International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency. That's the equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs lost across the globe, or about four times greater than the impact from the Great Recession of 2009. The world's poorest could take a decade to regain their financial footing. Oxfam describes the pandemic's impact as the greatest rise in inequality since records began." The International Labour Organization said the crisis has been the most severe on work since the Great Depression in the 1930s. "Its impact is far greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2009," said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder. America's richest people have seen their wealth soar during the pandemic by more than $1 trillion, thanks to a booming stock market and a K-shaped recovery that has benefited the rich, while poorer people have struggled with lost wages and jobs and future opportunities. It's a rich vs. poor phenomenon that is replicating across the globe.