Should Billionaires Exist?

A look into the economics of billionaires

In response to rising inequality of wealth and income, many people have promoted policies aimed at redistributing wealth away from the ultra-rich. Some have taken it even further:

Sanders isn’t the only one to make this declaration. Robert Reich (former Secretary of Labor, and a prominent left-wing voice) has made a similar declaration, while UK politicians have also joined in.

So, realistically, what does this mean? And would it be feasible for America to eliminate billionaires?

Without question, the US has relatively high income inequality. The most common measure of inequality is the Gini index — where a score of 0 would indicate perfect equality (everyone has the exact same income) and a score of 1 would income one person has all of the income. While no country falls on either extreme of 0 or 1, there is large differences between many countries.

Compared to its OECD peers, only a handful of countries have higher inequality: