Income Inequality Is Irrelevant In A Country Like America

The fundamental issue behind income inequality could be boiled down to a single question: Are poor Americans better or worse off because Bill Gates ($79 billion net worth), Oprah Winfrey ($3 billion net worth), Michael Jordan ($1 billion net worth) and Mark Zuckerberg ($40 billion net worth) are living in the United States?

Certainly, having them living in America creates more income inequality. It also hurts the poor by….oh wait, having them here doesn’t hurt the poor at all. None of these people made their money off the backs of the poor (How could they? The poor don’t have any money) and all of them pay exorbitant taxes because the United States already has the most progressive tax system in the Western world.

So, for example, whatever Bill Gates’ 1/319 millionth share of the cost for our street signs, police, roads, the military, food stamps, Social Security, Obama’s vacations and all the other various and sundry expenses our government racks up may be, he’s paying far more than that. In fact, Gates claims to have paid $6 billion in taxes. Then there are the taxes Microsoft pays (roughly $5 billion per year) and the taxes paid by all the people employed by Microsoft. Speaking of the people employed by Microsoft, the company has over 100,000 employees. That’s a lot of Americans Gates potentially raised up out of poverty. Then when you consider how much everyone from Bill Gates all the way down spends, there are obviously many businesses being kept afloat by Microsoft cash. On top of all that, Bill Gates has given away $28 billion since 2007. 

Tell me how some poor family in Chicago or Detroit is being hurt by this in any way? What’s the downside supposed to be of entrepreneurs creating jobs and paying billions in taxes? 

Oh, yes, it isn’t that any particular rich person is doing well that’s hurting the poor; it’s that the incomes of the rich are growing faster than the incomes of the poor. Those poor families are staying poor while the top 1% is getting richer. This is what the Left says.

Fortunately, it’s just not true because in America, there is no rigid class system that mires everyone in place economically.

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Income Inequality Is Irrelevant In A Country Like America - John Hawkins