Mackenzie Scott’s gifts shed infallible light on Bezos’ COVID capitalism

Mackenzie Scott, the ex-wife of the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, has made headlines after she announced to donate $ 4.2 billion of her fortune to 384 organizations dedicated to making a difference during the coronavirus pandemic.

This news came after Scott made headlines in July for contributing about $ 1.7 billion to historically black universities and colleges, as well as women’s rights, LGBTQ and climate change groups.

Meanwhile, Scott’s ex-husband continues to arouse the ire of activists and lawmakers for his immense (and rapidly growing) wealth, coupled with deep concern about how his Amazon company is treating workers, especially during the pandemic.

Bezos has previously been criticized for being noticeably less generous than other prominent billionaires. He has declined to sign the Giving Pledge, an initiative led by billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to encourage other wealthy individuals to donate most of their assets to charity toward the end of their lives.

“This pandemic has wrecked the lives of Americans already struggling,” wrote Scott, who quickly signed the Giving Pledge following her 2019 divorce from Bezos, in a Tuesday Medium post announcing she has made more than $ 4 billion. had contributed to the past four months.

“Economic losses and health outcomes have been worse for women, for people of color and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has significantly increased the wealth of billionaires,” she added.

Organizations such as Goodwill, the United Way, the NAACP, the YMCA, and the YWCA are among those who have received contributions from Scott. The billionaire, whose net worth is estimated at just over $ 60 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, has also contributed to food banks and programs like Meals on Wheels that are at the forefront of feeding hungry Americans – a serious problem that has been exacerbated for millions during the pandemic.

“This woman is extraordinary. I wish her former husband would follow suit,” NBC News anchor Maria Shriver tweeted Tuesday night, sharing the news of Scott’s donations.

Chuck Collins, director of the Charity Reform Initiative at the Institute for Policy Studies, said The New York Times that Scott “disrupts” the standards of billionaire philanthropy.

“You think of all these technological fortunes, they are the big disruptors, but she is disrupting the norms around billionaire philanthropy by acting quickly and not creating her own foundation for her great-grandchildren to give the money away,” Collins said .

In comparison, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation disbursed $ 5.1 billion last year. Combining Scott’s $ 4.2 billion with the summer’s $ 1.7 billion will bring her contribution to nearly $ 6 billion for 2020. Although the Gates Foundation, which also receives funding from Buffett, adds Scott’s contributions towards the end of the year, the organization employs approximately 1,600 people. and has been in operation since 2000. Scott’s philanthropy began after her divorce in 2019 and is run with a team of advisers.

Bezos saw its net worth grow nearly 60 percent over the course of 2020, or about $ 58 billion. Bloomberg estimates Bezos’ current net worth at $ 183 billion. Over the year, the country’s four richest individuals – Bezos, Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk – saw their combined fortunes grow by nearly $ 230 billion.

During the same period, Feeding America believes that about 50 million Americans – up from about 35 million in 2019 – will have faced food insecurity this year. That number includes about 17 million children. Unemployment rose dramatically during the pandemic as lockdown measures forced thousands of businesses to close and millions of Americans are estimated to be on the verge of deportation.

Progressives, such as Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, along with the so-called squad made up of representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, have pointed to dramatically growing inequality as a signal of the need for major reforms.

“Since 1990, there has been a massive transfer of wealth from workers to the people at the top. While the 1% saw their wealth increase by $ 22 trillion, the bottom 50% of Americans saw their wealth decrease by $ 776 billion. need a strong middle class, not an oligarchy, ” Sanders tweeted on November 27.

During the pandemic, Amazon workers became vital in providing Americans with the necessities of life, and their working conditions and compensation drew national attention. As Bezos, their boss, got richer and richer, they continued to work long hours for low wages in what many described as risky working conditions. Attempts to attack and organize were met with strong backlash and in some cases with retaliation by Amazon management.

In March, as the pandemic started to intensify and some Amazon workers in New York tried to organize in protest at their working conditions, the company decided to fire assistant manager Chris Smalls. The organizer learned he had been fired when he and dozens of other Amazon employees protested their company’s response to COVID-19. The Amazon workers demanded what many saw as basic necessities – personal protective equipment and risk compensation – when performing their essential work.

While Amazon paid short-term temporary pay increases and double overtime in the early months of the pandemic, those measures ended in June. The company has also invested heavily in personal protective equipment for employees and other measures to protect them. In November, Amazon gave frontline workers a one-time vacation allowance of $ 300, and in June, they received $ 500. Despite these measures, employees continued to express their frustration.

“Jeff Bezos has been deeply involved in the global community’s response to COVID and has supported relief efforts both personally and through Amazon,” said a company spokesperson. Newsweek.

In February, Bezos announced that he would give $ 10 billion to fight climate change. However, this money is transferred to his own Earth Fund. So far, that fund has announced that it will provide $ 791 million to organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Resources Institute and the World Wildlife Fund.

The Amazon spokesperson pointed to a $ 100 million donation from Bezos to Feeding America in April. Bezos also pledged to contribute up to $ 25 million in May to All in WA – a coalition of philanthropic, business and community leaders in Washington state. The billionaire also pledged more than $ 1 million to more than 40 homeless organizations this year.

But many believe there is a need for systematic change at Amazon and in the way billionaires like Bezos are allowed to amass wealth.

“Bezos has amassed so much added wealth over the past nine months that he could give every Amazon employee $ 105,000 and was still as rich as he was before the pandemic,” wrote Robert Reich, who was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. Sunday column for The Guardian.

“So you’d think he could afford safer workplaces. But as of October, more than 20,000 American Amazon employees were infected with the coronavirus,” Reich wrote.