WEALTH SHOWN TO SCALE: The 400 Richest Americans

A sobering exercise in understanding the disparity of wealth in the United States. Keep scrolling to the right to get a sense of the inequality. https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

Jeff Bezos may be insanely rich, but it is a drop in the ocean compared to the combined wealth of his peers. The 400 richest Americans own about $3 trillion, which is more than the bottom 60% percent of Americans.

A trillion dollars is such a large figure, that you might as well say "eleventy gajillion zillion dollars." So in this section, we will try to understand the scale of this figure by looking at what could be accomplished with various chunks of this wealth.

As we proceed, try to keep in mind: all of this wealth is controlled by a group so small, that they could fit on a single 747 airplane—with 260 seats left over.

400 richest Americans ($2.96 trillion)

As we proceed, try to keep in mind: all of this wealth is controlled by a group so small, that they could fit on a single 747 airplane—with 260 seats left over.

What could we do with 3% of this money?

Test Every American for Coronavirus

As of this writing, testing in the United States falls far short of what is needed to re-open the economy. By some estimates, sufficiently ramping up testing to around 30 million tests per week would cost around $100 billion total, or about 3% of the wealth currently controlled by the 400 richest Americans.

Wipe out malaria
Malaria is one of the worst infectious diseases ever visited on mankind, possibly killing more people than any other infectious disease in history. In the 20th century alone, malaria killed more people than the Black Death.

Coronavirus has shown us all the horrors of living with a deadly disease. Sadly, for much of the world, this horror was a constant feature of daily life even before coronavirus.
All of these deaths are preventable. Treating and preventing malaria is a well understood science, universally practiced in the developed world.

It is estimated that malaria could be globally eradicated by 2030 for a cost around $1.84 per at-risk person per year, or around $100 billion total. This would be around 3% of the wealth currently possessed by the 400 richest Americans.

Around 800 children will die of malaria today. A small group of super rich people could stop it for a sum of money so small that they would likely never even notice its absence. But they choose not to.

What could we do with 5% of this money?

Provide $1,200 to every American household.

The recent coronavirus stimulus was the largest ever passed by congress. It was financed entirely through deficit spending, which will be repaid by taxpayers for generations. The burden of repaying this debt could be erased in an instant with a tax on the super rich so small that they would not even feel it.

The wealth of 400 Americans could have financed the entire CARES act, including the corporate bailouts, expanded unemployment, and expanded testing—with nearly a trillion dollars left over. 

Instead, the American tax payer will be stuck with the bill.

What could we do with 5.7% of this money?

Lift every American out of poverty.

As of 2019, around 38 million Americans lived in poverty. If Americans in poverty were a state, they would be second largest by population. There are more Americans living in poverty than the entire population of Canada. There are likely millions more newly impoverished as a result of coronavirus, but those numbers are not fully known yet.

Every single person in America could be lifted above the poverty line with a one-time cash subsidy of around $10,000 per impoverished family (and about $7,000 for impoverished individuals). The total cost would be $170 billion, a little over 5% of the wealth currently controlled by 400 individuals.
It may seem counter intuitive that a one-time subsidy could have any lasting impact on chronic poverty. But one of the surprising truths about poverty is that it's fluid. Americans move in and out of poverty many times throughout their lives, and one good year can have a massive and long lasting effect.

A wealth of data now supports the idea that one-time cash transfers can permanently transform a local economy. Given a sudden windfall, people invest in their future. They go back to school, obtain transportation, pay for childcare, pay down debilitating debts, and do any number of things to improve their career prospects and financial future.

permanently transform a local economy. Given a sudden windfall, people invest in their future. They go back to school, obtain transportation, pay for childcare, pay down debilitating debts, and do any number of things to improve their career prospects and financial future.

In the US, for all of the people that escape poverty in any given year, about half stay out of poverty for at least five years afterwards. About a third are still out of poverty ten years l This would not be a permanent fix for all Americans. Surely, some would quickly return to poverty, and others face debts so large that the subsidy would make little difference. But for tens of millions of Americans, this would be a life changing event. It would be a generation defining social program that reshapes our economy for decades to come.