Do you think it’s ethical to be a billionaire? When I was younger, I thought people could just be as rich as they wanted. And to a point, I still don’t care if people make more money than I do. But I don’t think it is possible to become a billionaire without doing it on the backs of the people that work for you. And this is one of the main reasons that we have billionaires and still have 42 million people who need SNAP just to survive.
When I was younger, I also fell for Dave Ramsey’s Baby steps. I thought if I just did what he said, I would be able to afford everything I needed to afford. But his version of money management only works if you are mismanaging money and make enough. It doesn’t work if you’re not making enough salary to sustain yourself. (We don’t have to talk about how I got sick because I followed his grocery shopping advice either). I felt a lot of shame because his money advice, which is the ‘gold standard’ for evangelical Christians, didn’t work for me. I worked in non-profit and just didn’t make enough money to get by. No amount of skipping lattes can make up for that.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and has been since 2009. Thankfully, most places don’t pay minimum wage. In Pennsylvania, Walmart averages $16 and maybe $18 an hour. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the purchasing power of that standard has dropped significantly. I’ve been trying to find out what the minimum wage ‘should’ be, if it had kept up with inflation and productivity, and I’m seeing figures around $26 an hour.
But guess what: the price of housing has doubled since 2009.
So not only have wages not kept up with inflation, they really haven’t kept up with the cost of housing. People who bought homes in 2009 have much lower costs for housing than people trying to buy homes or rent apartments now.
It’s no wonder people are struggling – they are having to work for amounts of money that simply can’t sustain them.
And here’s the big BUT. Large companies – like McDonalds, Walmart, and Amazon – are raking in the profits. Their business model depends on low wage workers doing the labor. These companies know that their workers earn so little that they require government assistance to survive.
So if you are angry at people who need food stamps, your angry is sadly misplaced. These big corporations lobby congress to keep that minimum wage low and to get themselves tax breaks. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a federal tax break given to companies who hire people who receive SNAP benefits. AHEM!!! Are you paying attention?
Walmart gets a tax break when they hire people who use SNAP. Walmart pays so little that its workers continue to need SNAP. And then those same workers go back and buy their groceries at Walmart with SNAP. (Walmart accounts for about 25% of all SNAP use).
This means that Walmart basically gets 3 separate advantages for keeping their workers low-paid. Meanwhile, the Waltons are worth about $432 billion. How is this ok?
Amazon pays its warehouse workers around $20 an hour, maybe up to $23. That’s still not enough to keep up with inflation. They know this. But hey, Jeff Bezos is worth over $220 billion. He easily dropped somewhere between 20 and 50 million dollars for his Venice wedding.
We can also talk about Elon Musk, who is on target to become the first trillionaire ever. He has more money than he can actually spend, why does he even need more?
Let’s contrast these folks with the Carnegie family. Andrew Carnegie was one of the richest men in history after building a steel empire. He sold his company, and do you know what he did? He funded libraries, colleges, and international peace efforts.
You may be familiar with Carnegie Hall or the Carnegie libraries. Do you know Makenzie Scott (Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife) who has given away over $19 billion (thanks to her shares in Amazon). At 82 years old, Judy Fualkner has pledged to give away 99% of her almost 8-billion-dollar fortune. There are some good people out there – just not enough of them.
Billie Eillish was right to call out the billionaires. A gutsy move for someone so young, but she is dead on. I agree with her – why are you even billionaires? You don’t need that much money. (I’m looking at you, Zuckerburg).
And many corporations depend on a business plan that sadly keeps low wage earners stuck on government benefits. The problem isn’t the workers – it’s the companies refusing to pay a living wage while still raking in the profit. And we all know that money is power.
“With great power comes great responsibility.” That is one of my all-time favorite quotes, and it comes, of all places, from Spiderman. If we want to get our citizens off of government assistance, we need our corporations to take responsibility for the problems they’ve created.