The data is not ambiguous. The world’s billionaires have collectively accumulated more wealth than the bottom 60 percent of humanity. In the United States, three men own more than the bottom half of the country combined. The wealth gap is vast.
A billion dollars is what happens when systems fail. No one needs a billion dollars. No one earns a billion dollars, not in any way the word “earn” was meant to be used.
Except, possibly, the guy who invented Uncrustables.
I know it’s controversial to suggest any level of sympathy for the billionaire class in this fraught political era. But I think even the staunchest anticapitalist can agree that frozen, crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are one of the more significant innovations in human history.