The Rise of the Working Poor and the Non-Working Rich

[Velar Fricative]

This is depressing.

[ESF]

The Walmart heirs alone have more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined.

[ttt]

Mar 31, 2015 19:43:30 GMT -5 ESF said:

The Walmart heirs alone have more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined.

Also, 40% of Americans is about 140,000,000 people. SIX people have more than a hundred and forty MILLION people.

[panicked]

Mar 31, 2015 19:46:04 GMT -5 ttt said:

Mar 31, 2015 19:43:30 GMT -5 ESF said:

The Walmart heirs alone have more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined.

Also, 40% of Americans is about 140,000,000 people. SIX people have more than a hundred and forty MILLION people.

That honestly makes me physically ill to think about.

[Velar Fricative]

Mar 31, 2015 19:43:30 GMT -5 ESF said:

The Walmart heirs alone have more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined.

Yep. That was the part that stood out to me too.

[ESF]

Mar 31, 2015 19:46:04 GMT -5 ttt said:

Mar 31, 2015 19:43:30 GMT -5 ESF said:

The Walmart heirs alone have more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined.

Also, 40% of Americans is about 140,000,000 people. SIX people have more than a hundred and forty MILLION people.

That actually makes me physically ill.

How do you just have that much money handed to you and not only be OK with it, but continue to espouse polities and platforms that will ensure that pile keeps growing?  At what point do these people say, "maybe it's grotesque that we've amassed more money than a hundred and forty million Americans combined, and maybe we should stop expecting the working stiffs out there to foot the cost of health care for the people that built our swimming pool of money?"  

Does that day ever come? When? 

[emisi]

Mar 31, 2015 19:59:10 GMT -5 ESF said:

Mar 31, 2015 19:46:04 GMT -5 ttt said:

Also, 40% of Americans is about 140,000,000 people. SIX people have more than a hundred and forty MILLION people.

That actually makes me physically ill.

How do you just have that much money handed to you and not only be OK with it, but continue to espouse polities and platforms that will ensure that pile keeps growing?  At what point do these people say, "maybe it's grotesque that we've amassed more money than a hundred and forty million Americans combined, and maybe we should stop expecting the working stiffs out there to foot the cost of health care for the people that built our swimming pool of money?"  

Does that day ever come? When? 

Probably around the time stuff like what cjoy posted starts to happen.

[penguingrrl]

Come on guys, it's totally reasonable. I mean, clearly Sam Walton does the work of 140,000 workers every day, so of course his family should be worth that many!

[Queen Mamadala]

Mar 31, 2015 19:54:40 GMT -5 panicked said:

Mar 31, 2015 19:46:04 GMT -5 ttt said:

Also, 40% of Americans is about 140,000,000 people. SIX people have more than a hundred and forty MILLION people.

That honestly makes me physically ill to think about.

I was just about to say this. I came across some of these stats in the Inequality for All documentary. I came away pretty upset and disgusted.

[Deleted]

I respect someone like warren Buffett that decided to give a lot of his money away. How could you not? You would need 10 lifetimes (or more) to spend that money.

[pantsparty]

I was reading some article recently that 50 years ago GM was the top employer in the U.S. and they paid over $50/hour in today's money to their employees. Now the top employer is Wal-Mart, and the federal government basically subsidizes their wages with assistance programs, because they're not paying enough.

It makes me ill.

[josieposy]

Won't someone think of the job creators???

[msmerymac]

Mar 31, 2015 19:59:10 GMT -5 ESF said:

Mar 31, 2015 19:46:04 GMT -5 ttt said:

Also, 40% of Americans is about 140,000,000 people. SIX people have more than a hundred and forty MILLION people.

That actually makes me physically ill.

How do you just have that much money handed to you and not only be OK with it, but continue to espouse polities and platforms that will ensure that pile keeps growing?  At what point do these people say, "maybe it's grotesque that we've amassed more money than a hundred and forty million Americans combined, and maybe we should stop expecting the working stiffs out there to foot the cost of health care for the people that built our swimming pool of money?"  

Does that day ever come? When? 

Also, think about how many Walmart workers are part of that bottom 40%. They could literally directly do something by, I don't know, PAYING THEIR WORKERS A LIVING WAGE, instead of establishing Bentonville's premiere art museum. Nothing against art. I love art. Art history was one of my minors in college. But I like people (in theory) more than art. Which is to say that lots of people suck, but humans deserve a basic standard of living.

[debatethis]

Anecdotal of course but my SIL is living this situation right now thanks in part to the lovely red state politics of North Carolina. 25 years old, expecting her first child, has been a "stellar" award winning employee full time or close to it since she was 18. Her employer offers health insurance but she can't afford it on hourly wages. I tried helping her through the ACA portal and she was informed that she didn't make enough for the exchange and to apply for state medicaid - except the NC state medicaid monthly income limit is $600. She's completely screwed.

I keep trying to encourage her to move to IL but no such luck yet.

[jeaniebueller]

Apr 1, 2015 9:11:02 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

Apr 1, 2015 7:55:57 GMT -5 pantsparty said:

I was reading some article recently that 50 years ago GM was the top employer in the U.S. and they paid over $50/hour in today's money to their employees. Now the top employer is Wal-Mart, and the federal government basically subsidizes their wages with assistance programs, because they're not paying enough.

It makes me ill.

But it was the unions that fucked gm 

Ugh, right? The downfall of manufacturing coinciding with increasing numbers of working poor....

[aurora]

Apr 1, 2015 8:56:25 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Mar 31, 2015 19:59:10 GMT -5 ESF said:

That actually makes me physically ill.

How do you just have that much money handed to you and not only be OK with it, but continue to espouse polities and platforms that will ensure that pile keeps growing?  At what point do these people say, "maybe it's grotesque that we've amassed more money than a hundred and forty million Americans combined, and maybe we should stop expecting the working stiffs out there to foot the cost of health care for the people that built our swimming pool of money?"  

Does that day ever come? When? 

Also, think about how many Walmart workers are part of that bottom 40%. They could literally directly do something by, I don't know, PAYING THEIR WORKERS A LIVING WAGE, instead of establishing Bentonville's premiere art museum. Nothing against art. I love art. Art history was one of my minors in college. But I like people (in theory) more than art. Which is to say that lots of people suck, but humans deserve a basic standard of living.

Which again gets back to the point that the Waltons are HUGE beneficiaries of our public assistance system. They make tons more $ personally because we taxpayers subsidize their employees rather than them paying their employees appropriately. That's not right.

[WOT?*]

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/04/walmart-heirs-charity-report_n_5440879.html

Walmart Heirs Have Given 0.04 Percent Of Net Worth To Family Foundation: Report

The heirs to the Walmart fortune, worth an estimated $140 billion, are one of the richest families in America, but a new report says they've given just 0.04 percent of their personal wealth to their charitable foundation.

Our Walmart, a group that fights for fair wages and other rights for Walmart workers, released a damning report on Tuesday of the Waltons’ giving tendencies. After analyzing 23 tax returns filed by the Walton Family Foundation, the group found that the company’s four heirs -- Rob, Jim, Alice and Christy Walton -- have given a total of $58.49 million to the family foundation, which comes to 0.04 percent of their net worth.

According to the report, the organization -- which has just under $2 billion in assets -- is 99 percent funded by charitable lead annuity trusts (CLATs), which offer the Waltons a sizable perk.

The money put into these trusts is designated for charity, but if the assets appreciate significantly, the money can be passed on -- tax-free -- to the heirs, according to Bloomberg.

A donor secures assets in the trusts for a set period of time and gives away a set amount each year. Whatever funds are leftover at the end of the period goes to the beneficiary, which is usually the donor’s heirs, without having to pay taxes, Bloomberg added.

The Waltons, Bloomberg reported, are "by far the biggest users" of such trusts in the United States.

By employing CLATS, the Waltons have saved an estimated $3 billion in estate taxes, a levy that generous moguls -- including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett -- support as a means to ensure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share to the government, Bloomberg noted.

But for donors like Gates and Buffett, giving a substantial amount of personal wealth is a critical aspect of the philanthropy game.

Back in 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates and Buffett launched the Giving Pledge, an initiative that encourages the world’s wealthiest people to pledge half their wealth to charity while they’re alive so that they have more control over how the money is spent. To date, the pledge has 127 signatories, including such heavyweights as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Still, despite the Giving Pledge’s earnest mission, some philanthropists have taken issue with the fact that it could potentially offer the same tax loopholes the Waltons have taken advantage of.

In 2010, Gates approached Robert W. Wilson -- a hedge fund manager who took his own life in February -- the philanthropist said he wasn’t interested in joining the Giving Pledge.

Wilson wrote in an email to Gates that he opposed the "loophole" that allows billionaires to simply set up family-controlled foundations that often become "bureaucracy-ridden sluggards."

Other experts have expressed similar sentiments.

"[The Giving Pledge] is terrific as long as we see an increase in philanthropic projects. It has been two years; what are the 10 or 20 major projects that come out of it?" Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com Inc., told the Wall Street Journal in 2012. "This can't just be a bunch of money going into trusts. It could end up being a bunch of air cover for people who don't want to give away their money."

The Walton family is THE richest family in America, with four of the top ten positions on the Forbes Richest 400 List (6-9). When you think that their $140 billion is equal to Bill Gates AND Warren Buffett combined, and consider that the top 10 are worth almost half a TRILLION dollars ($475.5B per the 2014 list), this means that the top ten individual wealth is worth considerably more than the majority of Americans *combined*.

[Deleted]

Not that I really needed it, but this further validates my hate for the Walmart empire.

[zoegirltx]

Apr 2, 2015 6:02:12 GMT -5 @lcap said:

Seems like there is an easy solution to this problem: raise the inheritance tax. It always surprises me when that gets brought up in policy debates and it becomes controversial. People who have no hope of ever amassing anywhere near the amount that will trigger the tax are against raising it because it supposedly runs counter to the "American Dream."

is it really just  that easy???  I thought most people that had that type of money simply put it into trusts/estates that allowed the wealth to go untaxed.

i assume most of these people aren't sitting on billions in CASH...it's all in stocks? real estate?  Likely still not in their personal name, but some type of entity for legal protections.

What type of taxation would get them for savings or wealth?

[zoegirltx]

And don't forget about people like the Koch brothers... aren't they "giving away" all their money to political PACS? is that considered a tax deduction they get while using their money to screw the poor?

[spaghettisquash]

Apr 2, 2015 6:54:53 GMT -5 zoegirltx said:

And don't forget about people like the Koch brothers... aren't they "giving away" all their money to political PACS? is that considered a tax deduction they get while using their money to screw the poor?

There is no tax deduction for contributions to PACs. You could deduct dues/contributions to 501c4, c5 and c6 as a business expense but if any portion of the dues/contribution is used for lobbying or political activity, the organization either has to pay a proxy tax on the activity or send notices to donors that portions of the contribution are non-deductible. 

[ttt]

Apr 2, 2015 6:29:12 GMT -5 @mx said:

Apr 2, 2015 6:02:12 GMT -5 @lcap said:

Seems like there is an easy solution to this problem: raise the inheritance tax. It always surprises me when that gets brought up in policy debates and it becomes controversial. People who have no hope of ever amassing anywhere near the amount that will trigger the tax are against raising it because it supposedly runs counter to the "American Dream."

The argument I always hear is family farms. Though you'd think you could easily create an out for farms ffs.

That said people like the Waltons are very good at using ostensibly charitable things like CLATS (as evidenced above) to avoid the estate tax period, so...raising it would probably have little impact on them without removing ways of escaping it.

And frankly, if your family farm is worth $50 million, you can afford to pay some damn taxes on it.