How Much You Need To Make To Be In The ‘Bottom Half Of Americans’ That Jeff Bezos Wants To Stop Taxing
FotoField | Shutterstock With a net worth of $272.8 billion, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the fourth-richest person in the world. He’s never really been considered a champion for the proverbial little guy, but could that be changing?
In an interview on the CNBC show “Squawk Box,” Bezos proposed that the bottom 50% of earners in the United States should not have to pay any income taxes at all. It’s a departure from what we’re used to hearing from billionaires, but a welcome one given the country’s extreme wealth disparity. Not everyone is comfortable with his motives, though.
Bezos’ suggestion sounds great, but it might not actually have much of an impact.
Bezos said that the bottom half of earners currently pay 3% in taxes, adding, “I think it should be zero.” It would be easy to hear that and think that a billionaire had actually woken up to the serious problems most people face, but it’s not that simple.
According to data collected from the IRS by the Tax Foundation, that bottom 50% made about $53,801 in 2023. The tax rate for that income bracket was set at 3.73%, meaning the average income taxes paid were $913.41.
That is a lot of money, especially if you’re not Bezos. For comparison, the top 1% of earners in the country made $675,602 and paid a 26.27% tax rate, which led to $537,908.52 in taxes.
Bezos argued that the income taxes the less fortunate pay are just “a small amount of money for the government,” and even promised to “advocate” for his plan with his government contacts.
Many people were concerned about what ulterior motives Bezos might have behind this proposal.
In a Reddit thread on the subject, commenters had some choice words for the billionaire. “He said this because if his employees can stop paying taxes, that’s like him giving them a raise without paying them more,” one person said.
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Another asked, “So he and those like him are going to pay more to compensate, right? And their companies are going to stop tax avoidance in literally every country they operate in, right?”
Others thought there was something even deeper going on. One person questioned whether this could provide a plausible explanation for federal agencies running out of money, while someone else theorized that it was due to the rise of AI. “The lower 50% shouldn’t pay taxes!” they said. “Problem is they won’t have jobs anyway in a few years.”
It seems like Bezos’ goal in telling the have-nots that he was going to make life easier for them was really just a way to help himself.
He also remarked, “I think what’s going on is that it’s kind of a tale of two economies, so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling.” It comes as no surprise that no one would know that better than Bezos himself.
In 2021, ProPublica released a report on “never-before-seen records” from the IRS that they had gained access to, which painted several of the wealthiest Americans in a less-than-flattering light. Apparently, Bezos reported that he did not earn any money in 2008 and 2011 and did not have to pay income taxes either year. Between 2006 and 2018, he claimed to have made $6.5 billion, of which he paid $1.4 billion in taxes.
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The problem is, during that same period, Bezos’ net worth actually increased by $127 billion, which means he paid taxes at a rate of 1.1%. Most of this money likely came from “unrealized capital gains,” which you do not legally have to pay taxes on. Still, it all shows how out of touch people with Bezos’ level of wealth really are.
This doesn’t mean that Bezos is an inherently bad person, or that he doesn’t believe people who make less money should pay less in taxes. It does show that he’s probably not the best person to decide what should happen to people who make less than $54,000 a year, though.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
