While progressives often argue that billionaires shouldn’t exist, as long as there are some 650 left in the United States, they can all learn from MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who garnered widespread praise for the announcement on Tuesdaying almost $ 4.2 billion in donations to 384 organizations.
Scott is ranked 18th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index – which her ex-husband leads by a significant margin – thanks to a 2019 divorce settlement in which she acquired millions of Amazon shares. She has pledged to give away most of its assets and announced $ 1.67 billion in direct donations to 116 charities in July tackling racial injustice and other aspects of inequality.
Her second major announcement, which came in one Medium post, acknowledges that persistent coronavirus pAndemic “has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling. Economic losses and health outcomes have been worse for women, for people of color and for those living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has significantly increased the wealth of billionaires.”
Speaking of stealing, here are the US billionaire’s capital gains during the pandemic:
Elon Musk: $ 118.5 billion
Jeff Bezos: $ 71.4 billion
Mark Zuckerberg: $ 50.1 billion
Larry Page: $ 28.9 billion
Sergey Brin: $ 28.5 billion
MacKenzie Scott: $ 23.8 billion https://t.co/pNtsgKYf86
– Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) December 10, 2020
According to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the collective wealth of the country’s billionaires has increased by $ 1 trillion since March as the pandemic raged, killing more than 302,000 people across the country while millions struggle to stay fed and pay rent or mortgage payments in the absence of adequate federal exemption.
“Scott’s bold and direct donations are an embarrassment to the billionaire class and their eternal private foundations, ” wrote Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at IPS, Tuesday. Common dreams. He noted that “most of these donations are for the works of mercy during this pandemic – food banks, direct civil society organizations, emergency funds and support services for the most vulnerable.”
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“Many private foundations still monitor their perpetual endowments and give the minimum required 5%, including overhead,” explained Collins. “Scott, for example, shames these mega foundations that are more concerned about eternity than their neighbors’ suffering during an unprecedented crisis.”
Such as Common dreams Reported earlier this month, nearly 800 philanthropists and social justice charities have signed a letter – initially released in May by the Patriotic Millionaires, IPS’s Charity Reform Initiative and the Wallace Global Fund – calling on Congress a three-year emergency charity incentive that would move $ 200 billion to the frontline of nonprofits by increasing disbursement requirements for private foundations and donor-advised funds.
Collins wrote in his response to Scott’s announcement that “ not only is the size of her gifts remarkable, but so is the approach she has taken. Scott, a newcomer to billionaire wealth, has surrounded himself with advisers coming from low-resource communities, not the people who typically sit on foundation boards. “
Scott shared some details about the selection process Medium, explaining that earlier this year she had assembled a team of advisers:
The result of the past four months was $ 4,158.5 million in donations to 384 organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington DC, some of which provide for basic needs: food banks, emergency relief funds, and support services for the most vulnerable. Others are tackling long-term systematic inequalities exacerbated by the crisis: debt relief, employment training, credit and financial services for under-resourced communities, education for historically marginalized and disadvantaged people, civil rights organizations, and legal defense funds that address institutional discrimination.
To select these 384, the team sought suggestions and perspective from hundreds of field experts, funders and nonprofit leaders and volunteers with decades of experience. We leveraged this collective knowledge base in a collaboration that included hundreds of emails and phone interviews, and thousands of pages of data analytics on community needs, program outcomes and each nonprofit’s ability to absorb and use funding effectively . We looked at 6,490 organizations and did more in-depth research on 822. We have put 438 on hold for the time being due to insufficient evidence of impact, unproven management teams, or to allow for further research on specific issues, such as the treatment of community members or employees . We don’t always learn about a problem within an organization, but when we do, we take extra time to evaluate. We will never eliminate every risk through our analysis, but we will eliminate many. Then we can select organizations to help – and avoid them.
While Scott’s gifts aroused applause, some pointed out that a progressive policy, including a wealth tax, would make billionaires like her pay for services provided by the recipients of her donations “every day rather than just when they feel like it.”
Scott’s announcement is now coming under fire for Amazon and Bezos over working conditions, especially during the pandemic. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Sunday shared part of an email he recently received from an employee at Amazon’s Whole Foods delivery warehouse in New York City, calling it “particularly distressing.”
The worker told Reich that six of her colleagues had tested positive for Covid-19 since Oct. 22, because “safe social distancing is not only ignored but discouraged.” She added that “when we express our discomfort to management, we are shouted at to speed up orders or to take unpaid leave.”
Earlier this month, after workers and activists took to the streets on Black Friday for the #MakeAmazonPay campaign, 401 lawmakers from 34 countries endorsed the effort with an open letter to Bezos saying, “We, elected representatives and government officials from around the world, would like to remind you that Amazon’s days of impunity are over.”