Thread by @MaybeCoachPatty

“In 2018, US households held over $113 trillion in assets... if that amount were divided evenly across the US population of 329 million, it would result in over $343,000 for each person.”

The 2018 median *household* income was $63,000. brookings.edu/blog/up-front/…

“The top 20% held 77% of total household wealth in 216, more than triple what the middle class held... In fact, the top one percent alone holds more wealth than the middle class.”

Alone. One percent *alone* makes more than 60% of US working families.

Only one percent—one—of US workers makes more than $250,000/year.

Only 16% of Americans have a salary above $95,000.

EIGHTY percent of Americans make less than $100,00/year.

A 12 percent tax on a $250,000 is worth more than 48% of American workers make during the entire year.

Let me be more clear:

There are 325 million ppl, roughly 160 million households, in the US. Of those, 1.6 million households are in the one percent, with an avg annual income among them of $750,000.

The very bottom one percenter earns the equivalent of five avg US households.

The average one percenter earns (~$750k), the equivalent of twelve middle class families.

The top .01 earning households (160,000 families) make at least $2.5 million, but on avg $9 mil, the equivalent of 150 average US families—or 300 families who live below the poverty line.

Meaning, at 50% tax rate, the avg .01 percenter—one human—could cover current equivalent tax burden of ten middle-class families, and still keep more wealth 74 average families combined.

In fact, taxing just one of the very bottom tier .01 percenters at 50% is enough to house 200 homeless veterans for a year—enough to send 70 kids to college—enough to feed over 4200 children.

One person’s taxes could do that. One.

Yet, the nearly 80% of American workers— you remember, the vast majority of us who make less than $100k a year—keep going to bat to save the richest of the rich from paying an equitable amount of taxes when any proposed tax change would save us money. Why?

Better yet, health care is roughly $10,000 per person per year with premiums typically around $800/month for a family. Healthcare costs don’t care about your wealth. Whether someone is middle class or a millionaire, they’re getting roughly the same product.

Meaning, a middle-class working American is paying ~10% a month to insure himself. The one percent? They pay—at most—four percent of their income.

EVEN IF a tax was enacted at five percent across the board to offer universal healthcare, 80% of Americans would save money.

Seriously—Any American making less than $200,000/year (99% of us—370 million ppl) who pay anywhere over $7513 a year in healthcare costs (deductibles, prescriptions, emergencies—all that included) would save money if there was 4% tax increase to provide healthcare

So when the one percent—roughly 1.6 mil ppl with an avg salary of $750,000 (low~)—when they pay their four percent for healthcare—that equates to $48 billion a year.

They alone, with no help, and still making at least 20x more than the avg American could insure 4.8 million ppl.

With a four percent healthcare tax, top one percent could insure ~13% of Americans alone.

If their income was taxed 40-50%, too, instead the current 35-37%, that’s another ~15-20% of Americans who have access to the basic human right of life, of healthcare to keep them alive.

Granted, 51% of Americans still live below the poverty line of $30,000 per household per year, so more would still need to be done, including making corporations (not SBs) pay their fair share.

Meaning when Apple makes $1500/sec, when Walmart makes $430/sec, when Facebook makes $325/sec, when Fannie Mae makes $390/sec—a second—they should be able to pay a liveable wage to their employees (so that the employees aren’t a tax burden) and pay their taxes, too.

Those figures are in profit. Per second.

So props to Walmart for employing 1% of the US workforce at a whopping 1.4 million ppl, but there’s no reason a company should make more a second than an employee does in a week.

Walmart could literally settle for making “just” $215/sec (splitting their profits with the 1.4 million people who actually work for it), provide $5000 raises for every single one of their employees, and still pocket $6.8 billion dollars a year.

Real life: Walmart could pay ALL their employees $5k/year and still pocket billions.

And to the workers currently making $25,000/year, that $5,000 finally brings them above the poverty line.

Plus Walmart would save on food seminars at new employee orientation.

NOT TO MENTION the 80% of Americans who make $100k or less don’t hoard their money because we’ve never had enough of it. With less of a healcare burden and by paying full time employees fair wages, that extra money cycles back into the economy, fueling businesses.

Like I took two hours to do the math and find the facts. You can’t tell me there’s any reason other than greed for there to be hungry, homeless, or health-fearing people in America.

And this isn’t attacking Jeff Bezos, or anything multi-billionaire. It’s not about promoting a new form of finances or government. It’s not about telling people what they can and can’t do with their money. It’s about being an American.

For me, being an American means taking care of each other.

Rudyard Kipling taught us, “The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”

Well there’s 553,000 homeless wolves, over 67,000 of whom fought for our pack.

59% of the pack lives check to check, and 44 million of our pack doesn’t have healthcare.

15 million of our pack—our children—live in poverty. Adjusted by families, 43% of our kids come from poor families.

The number of people in our pack who don’t have access to a toilet or a tub or water is the same amount of people who make 7x the avg US household income.

So maybe we should improve the pack. Everyone.

Educate them.
Feed them.
Heal them.
Compensate them.
Love them.

Because we’re only as strong as our weakest link. And if we don’t do something soon, this chain is going to break.