--- title: It’s Time to Get Billionaires Off of Welfare description: Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna write about their proposal to get billionaires like Jeff Bezos and other corporation owners off of welfare. canonical: https://time.com/5388596/billionaires-welfare-bernie-sanders/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-09-06T16:00:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:44:46.154Z article:section: Ideas og:title: It’s Time to Get Billionaires Off of Welfare og:description: Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna write about how the wealthy profit off of the middle class og:url: https://time.com/5388596/billionaires-welfare-bernie-sanders/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57bb293a16ca13bb/698939974ee262868b312c90/gettyimages-921345548.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 8660 og:image:height: 4871 og:image:alt: welfare-wealth-inequality og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: It’s Time to Get Billionaires Off of Welfare twitter:description: Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna write about how the wealthy profit off of the middle class twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57bb293a16ca13bb/698939974ee262868b312c90/gettyimages-921345548.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # It’s Time to Get Billionaires Off of Welfare > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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It covers the reporting, scoops and conversations shaping AI and the decisions facing leaders. #### Where can I get reported AI news rather than commentary? In the Loop is TIME's AI newsletter, built on original reporting and access to the people building and governing AI. It publishes Tuesdays and Fridays and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes TIME's In the Loop? Harry Booth, a tech reporter at TIME, writes In the Loop. #### Is In the Loop free? Yes. In the Loop is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: America Relies Too Much Upon the Generosity of the Rich [Watch (HLS stream): America Relies Too Much Upon the Generosity of the Rich](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7PDoEGJU.m3u8) (3:24)  _Published 2018-09-06. By many measures, we live in an era of extreme generosity. But is it enough?_ by [Sen. Bernie Sanders](https://time.com/author/senator-bernie-sanders/) and [Ro Khanna](https://time.com/author/ro-khanna/) Sep 6, 2018 4:00 PM UTC  Close-up Of Coins Stack On The Golden Scale Against White Background Close-up Of Coins Stack On The Golden Scale Against White Background AndreyPopov—Getty Images/iStockphoto by [Sen. Bernie Sanders](https://time.com/author/senator-bernie-sanders/) and [Ro Khanna](https://time.com/author/ro-khanna/) Sep 6, 2018 4:00 PM UTC Year after year, decade after decade, Republicans in Washington have lectured the American people about the need for “welfare reform.” In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan railed against a fictitious [“welfare queen”](http://time.com/5388356/our-racist-soul/) driving a Cadillac. Just a few years ago, Republicans turned their attention to a young surfer who used the food stamp program to purchase lobster. But if you listen closely, you will never hear much talk from our Republican colleagues about some of the biggest welfare recipients in America: The [billionaire owners](http://time.com/money/5124573/jeff-bezos-net-worth-healthcare-earnings/) of some of the most profitable corporations in our country. Here are just a few examples. [Jeff Bezos](http://time.com/5388085/bernie-sanders-stop-bezos-bill/), the founder of Amazon, is [the wealthiest person on Earth](http://time.com/money/5334441/amazon-jeff-bezos-net-worth-prime-day-2018/), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He is now worth $168 billion. In fact, since the beginning of this year, [his wealth has increased by about $277 million](http://time.com/money/5365875/jeff-bezos-net-worth-washington-post/) — every single day. Meanwhile, Mr. Bezos continues to pay many thousands of his Amazon employees wages that are so low that they must rely on food stamps, Medicaid or public housing in order to [survive](https://newfoodeconomy.org/amazon-snap-employees-five-states/). In effect, the middle-class taxpayers of this country are subsidizing the low wages paid by the richest person on Earth. That’s nuts. But Jeff Bezos and Amazon are not alone. The Walton family of Walmart and many other billionaire-owned large and profitable corporations also get richer because of taxpayer support for their low-paid employees. The [Walton family of Walmart](http://time.com/money/5370424/walton-family-wealth-walmart-richer-worth/) is the wealthiest family in the country with a net worth of [over $160 billion](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-16/walton-family-s-wealth-surges-11-6-billion-as-walmart-rallies). This one family has owned more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans. Meanwhile, just like Amazon, Walmart pays its workers [wages that are so inadequate](http://time.com/5388085/bernie-sanders-stop-bezos-bill/) that many of them are forced to depend upon public-assistance programs, at a cost of some [$6.2 billion a year](https://americansfortaxfairness.org/files/Walmart%5FOn%5FTax%5FDay%5FReport%5FExecutiveSummary.pdf)to taxpayersin order to survive. The fast food industry is another major recipient of corporate welfare. While the co-owner of Burger King, Jorge Paulo Lemann, has a net worth of about $25 billion, low wages at this fast-food chain cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated [$356 million a year](https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-costs-taxpayers-12-billion-annually-2013-10). And it’s not just Burger King. McDonald’s workers are actually _encouraged_ to sign up for [government assistance](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/instead-living-wage-mcdonalds-tells-workers-sign-food-stamps/309625/)— meaning the company fully acknowledges that it pays its employees wages that are non-livable. In total, [52% of all fast food workers](http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/fast-food-poverty-wages-the-public-cost-of-low-wage-jobs-in-the-fast-food-industry/) rely on public assistance programs to make ends meet. The wealthy owners of big airlines are also major welfare recipients. While American Airlines made nearly $2 billion in net profits last year, and its CEO is on track to make $31 million in total compensation this year, [27% of workers at its subsidiary Envoy Air](https://www.cwa-union.org/news/new-report-passenger-service-agents-american-airlines-subsidiary-are-making-poverty-wages), which has over 16,000 employees, need food stamps and other forms of public assistance because of the inadequate wages they receive. The working families and middle class of this country should not have to subsidize the wealthiest people in the United States. That’s absurd. That’s what a rigged economy is all about. The fact is that if employers in this country simply paid workers a living wage, taxpayers would save about [$150 billion a year](http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages/) on federal assistance programs and millions of workers would be able to live in dignity and security. That is why we are proposing legislation to demand that billionaires get off of [welfare](http://time.com/3981312/charles-koch-corporate-welfare/). The bill gives large, profitable employers a choice: Pay workers a living wage or pay for the public assistance programs their low-wage employees are forced to depend upon. Specifically, this legislation would establish a 100% tax on corporations with 500 or more employees equal to the amount of federal benefits received by their low-wage workers. For example, if a worker at Amazon receives $2,000 in food stamps, the employer would be taxed $2,000 to cover that cost. Let us be very clear: We believe that the government has a moral responsibility to provide for the vulnerable — the children, the elderly, the sick and the disabled. But we do not believe that taxpayers should have to expend huge sums of money subsidizing profitable corporations owned by some of the wealthiest people in this country. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, and when millions of our fellow Americans are working at [starvation wages](https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-17-677), we must create an economy that works for all — not just the people on top. ## Transcript Philanthropy, social enterprise, win- win businesses that try to help people with some app and various things that sound good, that sound kind, that sound helpful. These things make a small difference to the people that they're helping. But they are part of upholding a system of extreme inequality that is responsible For the anger and social dislocation, and just rampent anxiety that has buffeted the society in recent years. We live in this time of extraoridinary generosity by the winners of our age, but a time in which those winners Use generosity to actually protect the system that continues to cause most of our biggest problems and to shut most of Americans out. [ MUSIC ] One of the interesting things about rich people in our time is they are, many of them not all of them, many of them deeply determined. To do good. To make a difference. But in there insistence in doing that in a way that protects their own privileges, keeps them on top, keeps the money making system that let them win does not make them sacrifice, does not come at the expense of their privilege. And their insistence on the Those things. Their do- gooding often ends up being the accomplice to greater harm. A lot of what I'm arguing for is for America to fix its infrastructure, its core social infrastructure, the stuff that allows us to be a society. We have allowed over the last 30, 40 years government To be othered. Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem. Government has been turned, in peoples imagination, into an enemy, and alien invador. The work of actually fixing that begins by taking government and public change making back at all levels. You can't use a dysfunctional Congress or Trump as an excuse to not do that. We have government at every level in this society. We are the popular vote. There is a playbook in this country, written in our very first amendment. For speaking your truth, for assembling For organizing and actually fighting to change this country. And people have done it time and again. We had slavery in this country. We had segregation in this country. We had internment in this country. Women couldn't vote in this country. I think for a lot of the last many decades, there was kind of this view that, government was this bloated boring side show. And it was really Mark Zuckerberg who was changing the world. It was really, you could buy a tote bag that would change the world. And Apple was changing the world with that ad that it had. Apple computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be Like 1984. You could kind of make the world a better place regardless of what was happening in the realm of public life. And I think we've been very rudely awakened to the idea that society is only as good as its public life. There's a lot of things we can do to recreate the condition. Is for actually improving this society in it's deep bones, and not on the surface. We just have to be willing and desirous in doing so. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5388596/billionaires-welfare-bernie-sanders/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5388596/billionaires-welfare-bernie-sanders/"},"headline":"It’s Time to Get Billionaires Off of Welfare","datePublished":"2018-09-06T16:00:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:44:46.154Z","description":"Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. 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