Have you ever sprinkled a little paprika ove a billionaire? It’s delicious!
Just kidding y’all- when people say eat the rich, they don’t mean actual cannibalism. It’s a phrase with roots in the French Revolution (a revolution fought largely over wealth inequality) that is used as a rallying cry for ending wealth inequality.
Eat the Rich: Helping or Hurting?
Depending on who you ask, eat the rich is either a powerful battle cry for workers, or an antagonistic and useless Twitter phrase.
What’s indisputable though, is the wealth gap in the US. The combined wealth of all U.S. billionaires increased 59.8% between March 18, 2020 and July 9, 2021. Their wealth jumped from $2.947 trillion to $4.711 trillion. In just over a year!
Several of the biggest corporations and their owners also paid little or no income tax over the last few years. Amazon paid just 1.2% in taxes in 2019, while the average American paid 14%.
This gap is growing, and the people paying the 14% are noticing that their end of the stick is feeling a little too heavy.
Which has in turn, brought up the idea of taxing people’s wealth. Rather than simply tax what people earn in a year, proposals have come forth to tax people’s overall assets.
To learn all about the proposed wealth tax, US wealth inequality, and my personal feelings about if we should eat the rich, check out our full Youtube video below!
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