Governments worldwide, facing strong evidence that fallout from COVID-19 has widened wealth gaps as well as wrecking economies, have expanded social safety nets and in some cases have begun exploring bolder ways of tackling the imbalances.
The massive injections of fiscal and monetary stimulus and ideas such as one-off taxes on the rich and basic income support for the poor potentially set the scene for the biggest egalitarian shift since generous welfare states emerged in western Europe after World War II.
"The silver lining from the pandemic is that maybe there's an opportunity here for us to review and renegotiate the social contract," said Francisco Ferreira, director at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE).