When I initially started working on my article about wealth inequality, I was planning on sharing my thoughts about how differences in income levels could be an incentive for wealth creation and innovation. I was going to include a paragraph or two about why taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor wouldn’t address the structural setbacks facing people living in extreme poverty. I figured I would wrap up by writing about the pros and cons of universal basic income, then call it a day. But then, I saw this data visualization called “Wealth, at scale.”
The website takes users on a journey from a single pixel to represent US$ 1,000 to a large block representing Jeff Bezos’s net worth. To truly understand how much wealth he has, you scroll through from left to right with each inch of the screen representing tens of millions of dollars. The developer, Matt Korostoff, who made the page includes text as you scroll. The text compares the wealth of some of the world’s wealthiest individuals to:
the income of the average Amazon worker
the cost of chemotherapy for all cancer patients
the average lifetime earnings of doctors and lawyers
the income of other wealthy people like Tim Cook and Bill Gates
and more
Scrolling through the interactive site stopped me in my writing tracks. The unfairness of wealth inequality shouldn’t be used as the backdrop of a theoretical argument about personal incentives and work ethic; that trivializes the reality we find ourselves in today.
There are over 2,000 billionaires in the world at the same time that over 740 million people live on less than 2 dollars a day. The first sentence of Uplift and Empower is, “Life isn’t fair.” The depth of wealth inequality today is a sobering example of that truth.
Wealth inequality could be curbed with government regulation, but government officials receive funds from wealthy officials and corporations to support their campaigns. Lobbyists and special interest groups influence their policies. Sometimes, those groups influence their policies more than the concerns and opinions of their constituents.
If government regulation isn’t always effective, then taxation can fill the gap, right? Not quite. High-income individuals already pay a higher share of their income in taxes; but, as I clarified in Uplift and Empower, income and wealth are different. Investment income gets taxed at a lower rate than income from salary and wages, which is why a multi-millionaire can end up paying a lower tax rate than a middle-income American.
Besides, high-income individuals are notoriously good at evading taxes. As a 2019 article from the independent non-profit ProPublica shared,
“They [the ultrawealthy] can devote seemingly limitless resources to hiring the best legal and accounting talent. Such taxpayers tend not to steamroll tax laws; they employ complex, highly refined strategies that seek to stretch the tax code to their advantage. It can take years for IRS investigators just to understand a transaction and deem it to be a violation.”
Beyond this, some experts, such as Lawrence Summers “argue it is impractical [to implement a wealth tax] because calculating individual wealth (real estate, possessions) is problematic, and wealth can be shifted abroad…” Ultimately, wealth taxes are challenging to implement.
As I reflected on these factors, I remembered an important theme of Uplift and Empower that I could highlight—the importance of making an impact locally first before expanding beyond your community.
I decided not to sulk about the world's unfairness and the seemingly unchanging loop of lax regulations, low taxes, and unchecked wealth accumulation among the lawmakers and the law-benders. Instead, I focused on ways that average individuals can help curb wealth inequality locally.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article series, the phrase that has been giving me hope recently is incremental change. While I can’t enforce stricter tax laws on the ultrawealthy or increase wages for low-income workers, I can do the majority of the things that I mention below. If you’re reading this, you likely can as well.
So, where can the average individual start? Typically, solutions to addressing wealth inequality center around three core areas:
Education and skills training
Employee wages
Taxation
Individual interventions can start from these three core areas as well. For example, reducing inequality through education at a national scale involves efforts such as:
increasing investment in early childhood education
supporting job training
making college education or technical training more accessible
At a local level, your efforts in education could start relatively small by:
Supporting early childhood education through platforms like adoptaclassroom.org or donorschoose.org where you can help teachers in need provide school supplies for their students
Supporting job training by offering to mentor a young professional in your industry as they progress in their career
Making college education and technical training more accessible by supporting local scholarship funds or starting one of your own
Being the bridge between young talent and opportunities in your company or industry through supporting or coordinating internship programs, company visits, or networking events
When it comes to increasing employee wages, my thoughts immediately went to the decades-long fight to increase the national minimum wage in the United States. Many states have increased their minimum wage without waiting on federal decisions while people on both sides of the debate hold firmly to their opinions.
What can you do locally to help address disparities in employee wages?
If you don’t have the power to raise the minimum wage in your town, but you have discretionary income, you can leave larger tips for minimum wage employees to supplement their wages. "Waiters and bartenders earn more in tips than they do from what employers pay them as an hourly base wage." Even with tips, workers in those jobs earn very little on an hourly and annual basis, but tips add up and help cover essential bills that their salaries alone can’t.
If you don’t have the power or the discretionary income (or if you do), you can become an advocate. Write a letter (or make a phone call) to your local, state, and national representatives to encourage minimum wage increases and promote increased investments in job creation programs.
The last major area of focus for reducing wealth inequality is typically taxation. In a world where tax evasion erodes the impact of community development, taking action in this area will require shifting our focus slightly. Rather than focusing solely on taxation, we can begin to focus more broadly on strengthening infrastructure and community development.
Invest in your community by supporting local charities and community foundations in your area.
A major benefit of donating locally is the ability to see the impact of your investment firsthand. Use your local knowledge to make a difference among vulnerable populations around you.
Hold your local, state, and national politicians accountable. People are more willing to pay taxes when they see the impact of their money in their community.
Call attention to the areas of growth in your community, push for change, and follow up with your politicians to ensure that the changes you advocate for are addressed.
Prioritize equitable access to essentials like clean drinking water, electricity, and transportation for everyone regardless of their income levels.
Local knowledge is key for efforts in this area. Does everyone in your community have access to clean drinking water? Consistent electricity? Dependable public transport? If not, consider donating to local or national funds that invest in those areas. If you don’t have the financial resources to donate, you can always spread awareness about the issue(s) and coordinate local fundraising efforts instead.
Is transferring the responsibility of redistributing wealth from the ultra-wealthy to the middle and upper-middle-income an ideal solution? No, but it is a step in the right direction—an incremental change—that can inspire more giving at all levels of income.
Organizations like Resource Generation are already making efforts to redistribute wealth from wealth and/or class privileged 18 to 35-year-olds to underprivileged communities through donations to social justice movements. There is also a growing group of ultra-wealthy individuals who think they should be paying more in taxes. Times are changing, but as this shift occurs over time some people need your help now. So, be bold and take action!
You can start with the suggestions I’ve made above or develop unique ideas based on your community's needs and resources. Who knows, your city or town could become a proof of concept for broader, national changes in the future.
How can you #UpliftAndEmpower someone today?
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This article series, In Between The Lines, is an exploration of some of the topics and ideas I didn’t cover in my first book, Uplift and Empower: A Guide To Understanding Extreme Poverty and Poverty Alleviation. Sign up for the Uplift and Empower newsletter to get new articles sent straight to your email inbox.
Uplift and Empower was published on August 15, here is the link to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1641379243/! (The book is also available for sale at BN.com, Kobo, Walmart, and other distributors worldwide. Check UpliftandEmpower.com for more options.)
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