Living in a world where billionaires exist while there are so many people struggling for basic necessities is flat out cruel. No person should hoard so much money when there are communities in need.
During the coronavirus pandemic, billionaires in the U.S. increased their net worth by about $637 billion while unemployment rates increased, according to an Aug. 3 video by Business Insider.
Billionaires do not have the same amount of financial worry that the majority of the population has, yet they are given tax breaks even when they hurt the country by not using their money for good causes.
By hoarding their wealth, billionaires keep money from flowing into the economy.
According to a policy brief by Jan Svejnar, director of the Center on Global Economic Governance, when billionaires hold most of the wealth, it reduces a country’s economic growth.
Most billionaires will never even spend most of the money they have, so keeping it is simply a matter of pride. It is truly sickening to think about how they are able to trivialize the importance of money instead of using it to stimulate the economy and improve life for others.
Billionaires could use their money to help out people who are less fortunate.
There are 34 million people currently living below the poverty line in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census.
Meanwhile, there were more than 2,800 billionaires reported in the world in 2019 whose wealth was worth $9.4 trillion combined, according to CNBC.
That money alone makes up 12% of the world’s broad money, funds that are easily accessible, according to the CIA world factbook.
The super wealthy do not even make up 1% of the world’s 7 billion population, according to the census.
The differences in wealth are almost incomprehensible. One dollar to a regular person is equal to $1,355 to a billionaire, according to a March 6, 2018 article by Business Insider.
While there are people living paycheck to paycheck, billionaires can spend excessive amounts of money without feeling any real drop in their quality of life. There should never be such a large wealth gap between the majority of the population and the few who are super wealthy.
There are a few billionaires who used their money for good causes. The world’s richest man and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, created a philanthropic fund called the Day One Fund in 2018 with his ex-wife and novelist, MacKenzie Scott, in which they donated $2 billion to help the low-income children and homeless people.
On top of that, 210 billionaires have signed the Giving Pledge according to the Giving Pledge website.
With the Giving Pledge, many notable billionaires promise to donate half of their wealth before they die. The agreement was created by Warren Buffet, the fourth richest person in the world, Bill Gates, the second richest person in the world and his wife Melinda.
This is the most ethical way to spend excessive wealth, by donating it so other people will benefit from it rather than billionaires selfishly hoarding it. However, the good deed could be seen as a way for billionaires to receive a deduction on their taxes, according to deductions qualifications from the Internal Revenue Service.
Billionaires are also making so much money that even if they signed the Giving Pledge, they would have to drastically increase their charitable donations.
According to Gilded Giving 2020, a report from the Institute for Policy Studies, the wealth of 62 billionaires who agreed to the Giving Pledge in 2010 increased by 95% in ten years. This makes it difficult for them to stick to their pledge of donating half their wealth.
Billionaires not only have the wealth to advance their life and the lives of others, they have political power which helps them keep their money and make more.
Billionaire brothers, Charles and the late David Koch, have donated around $100 million since the 1970s to support conservative politics by influencing the outcome of elections and undoing limits on campaign contributions, according to an Aug. 23, 2019 New York Times article.
Wealthy people like them are able to create a cycle where they can donate to candidates that will keep taxes for the rich low. This allows them to keep their money and for politicians to be reelected because billionaires are funding their campaigns.
Billionaires should never be able to hold the amount of power they do and that can be fixed through taxing the rich to redistribute wealth and put it into charities and organizations that will help people around the world.