JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon reportedly thinks that the U.S. economy has essentially been split into those benefiting from thriving corporations and those who are left behind.
“I don’t want to be a tone deaf CEO; while the company is doing fine, it is absolutely obvious that a big chunk of [people] have been left behind,” Dimon said, CNBC quoted him as saying.
“Forty percent of Americans make less than $15 an hour. Forty percent of Americans can’t afford a $400 bill, whether it’s medical or fixing their car. Fifteen percent of Americans make minimum wages, 70,000 die from opioids” annually, CNBC quoted Dimon as saying at an event at the bank’s New York headquarters to unveil a new $350 million program to boost job prospects for people in under-served communities.
“If you travel around to most neighborhoods where companies live, they’re doing fine,” Dimon said. “So we’ve kind of bifurcated the economy.“
Dimon called the education system “broken” and said his bank stopped giving philanthropic dollars to colleges years ago.
“Harvard and Princeton are not a philanthropy,” Dimon said. “Helping these kids is.”
Dimon, who leads one of Wall Street’s biggest banks, also recently said that the ultra-rich could afford to pay more taxes as a wider political debate rages over increasing taxes for the wealthy, Reuters reported.
“I believe that individuals earning the most can afford to pay more, and I have no problem paying higher taxes to address some of the fundamental challenges and inequities in our society,” Dimon said in a statement emailed by JPMorgan, in response to questions posed by reporters.
“However, we need to ensure that our tax dollars are going where they can be most effective - like expanding the earned income tax credit and other programs that support the people and communities who really need it,” Dimon added.
Dimon’s remarks come as senior Democrats prepare to write a fiscal blueprint this year that would cut annual budget deficits and possibly include tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy.
U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, part of a new crop of Democrats that swept into office this year on a stronger liberal platform, has advocated taxes as high as 70 percent on taxable earnings above $10 million. That represents a large increase over the current 37 percent, which kicks in at $500,000 for a single earner.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, another Democrat and liberal firebrand who has taken on Wall Street, has proposed a tax on the accumulated wealth of the ultra-rich, through an annual payment of 2 percent of the value of net assets between $50 million and $1 billion and a 3 percent rate above that.
Dimon received $31 million in total pay for 2018, according to a regulatory filing by JPMorgan.
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