It's kind of wild to think back to the beginning of the pandemic

when it felt like we were having a shared experience with billions of people around the world.

We've got to with billions of people around the world. Everyone, everywhere, had to learn to survive, and manage the virus, not just from a public health standpoint, but from an economic one too.

But in the two years since, what's become clear is that different countries approach the pandemic and their relative wealth going in, have resulted in vastly different outcomes.

It's almost been like a perverse global experiment.

So for our fourth season, the Paycheck Podcast is going to seven countries to try to understand how those variables affected economic inequality.

In many ways, the pandemic has made inequality much worse.

So this pandemic, we're witnessing the biggest increase in billionaire Welsh since records began.

And a billionaire was created every 26 hours during this pandemic.

If you just look at Elon Musk, for example, there was a lot of chatter at the time that he might have a chance to become a trillionaire.

But not everywhere or everyone has felt the pain equally.

Some places and people have been hit particularly hard.

For all Brazilians, the cost of living is really getting unbearable.

And it's the poor and the once booming middle classes that are bearing the brunt.

With COVID, it was so big because the problem was the schools had all shut down and a lot of

support that all these girls get comes from their schooling.

Suddenly, we started getting a lot of calls about child marriage.

But some others are showing the way to a more equal world.

Oh my goodness. I said, miss, it should please tell me I was selected and she was just laughing.

She's like, oh, y'all just killing me with this. I'm just loving the reaction.

For me, I see lights.

I see, like, I'm going to that moon that I wanted.

...