Jeff Bezos is opening up about wealth inequality in America. Given that the Amazon founder has often been accused of unfair treatment of his own employees—with accounts of mandatory overtime and workplace safety issues—his latest comments are surprising.
In a new CNBC Squawk Box interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, says we’re living in a “tale of two economies.” There are the ultrarich who are financially thriving, and then there’s the rest of us who are, well, not.
When pressed about how to solve the problem, Bezos said that part of the reason no one is addressing such a huge divide is that politicians are busy blaming one another, rather than making a commitment to solve the problem. “They’re using the age-old technique of picking a villain and pointing fingers,” he said, indicating that no one is looking for a “root cause.”
When asked what ideas he had to solve the problem, Bezos talked taxes. “A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year pays more than $12,000 in taxes,” he said, noting that it doesn’t make practical sense. “That’s $1,000 a month that could help with rent or groceries or anything,” he said, suggesting that someone that makes as little as $75,000 shouldn’t have to pay any taxes at all.
Meanwhile, he pointed out that these taxes are pocket change for the government that could easily be made up elsewhere. “The bottom half of income earners in this country pay 3% of the taxes,” he said. “It’s kind of absurd that we’re doing this.”
Still, Bezos didn’t state how the money could be recovered and stopped short of saying “by taxing the rich.” When asked if he should pay more in taxes, he seemed to avoid the question by asserting “that’s a policy debate” that could be had. He was quick to note, however, that villainizing the rich is just another “distraction.”
Regardless of tax woes, Bezos seemed hopeful overall about work opportunities that can help Americans find stability at a time when so many people are worried that those opportunities are falling away. He asserted that AI is going to create so many jobs that we will actually have a “labor shortage,” not a job shortage.
“What’s really going to happen is that it’s going to elevate all of these people,” he said of the technology’s capabilities. The tech mogul said that productivity in the U.S. is going to soar, and that we will even have “deflation” in terms of costs.
It’s clear that Bezos is a huge believer in AI. When pressed about widespread layoffs—which some businesses blame directly on artificial intelligence—he would not concede that the technology is the actual culprit.
Instead, he said that it’s the job of a worker to identify problems, and “there is no shortage of problems.” While the thousands of workers who have recently been laid off due to AI may not agree, Bezos says that working with AI is like going from digging with a “shovel” to being given “a bulldozer.”
“You should be so happy,” he added.