{"id":4614,"date":"2015-12-18T21:27:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T21:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4614"},"modified":"2015-12-18T21:27:58","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T21:27:58","slug":"patriotic-millionaires-report-widening-wealth-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4614","title":{"rendered":"Patriotic Millionaires Report Widening Wealth Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>by Eric Galatas<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>AUSTIN, Texas<\/strong> &#8211; Patriotic Millionaires, a group that counts Warren Buffett, Bill Gates Sr., and chief executives of Fortune 500 companies among its ranks, has released a report exposing a growing wealth gap between the 400 richest Americans and the rest of the population.<\/p>\n<p>Chuck Collins, an heir to the Oscar Mayer fortune who co-authored the report with the Institute for Policy Studies, summarizes what they found.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur main finding is that wealth is getting much more concentrated in the hands of a few than we thought,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, the wealthiest 20 people now have more wealth than the bottom half of the population, 152 million people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Collins said it\u2019s important for millionaires and billionaires to speak out against inequality and advocate for policies that can reverse what he calls \u201cdangerous trends.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4615\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4615\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4615\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/gr-49247-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"A new report documents the effects of a widening wealth gap in the United States and offers recommendations for limiting inequality. Photo: Revisorweb\/Wikimedia Commons.\" width=\"600\" height=\"401\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/gr-49247-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/gr-49247-1-1-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/gr-49247-1-1-405x271.jpg 405w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/gr-49247-1-1-60x40.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4615\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new report documents the effects of a widening wealth gap in the United States and offers recommendations for limiting inequality. Photo: Revisorweb\/Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>According to the report, the richest 100 households now hold as much wealth as the nation\u2019s entire African-American population, and the top 186 people on Forbes magazine\u2019s annual list of the wealthiest Americans own as much as all Latinos in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>While 11 members of the Forbes \u201cTop 20\u201d built successful companies or were shrewd investors, Collins said, nine made the list through inherited wealth. Because current policies favor the rich, he said, the United States is at risk of becoming a nation with the kind of hereditary aristocracy that Americans fought a revolution to overthrow. The report said extreme inequality corrodes the democratic process, polarizes communities and impairs public health.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt undermines healthy economic activity and growth, and it erodes social mobility, the ability of people who are not born wealthy to have the opportunity to become wealthy,\u201d Collins said. \u201cThese inequalities undermine the fundamental American dream.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report\u2019s recommendations to close the wealth gap include raising the minimum wage, limiting the influence of money in politics, shutting down offshore tax havens and taxing wealth from investments at the same rate workers pay on income.<\/p>\n<p>The full report is online at <a href=\"http:\/\/ips-dc.org\" target=\"_blank\">ips-dc.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Eric Galatas AUSTIN, Texas &#8211; Patriotic Millionaires, a group that counts Warren Buffett, Bill Gates Sr., and chief executives of Fortune 500 companies among its ranks, has released a report exposing a growing wealth gap between the 400 richest Americans and the rest of the population. Chuck Collins, an heir to the Oscar Mayer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4616,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions\/4616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}