Harry Shannon
I wrote this letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and several members of his cabinet:
There is a lot of talk about a wealth tax and about billionaires, but it’s hard for most people to understand just how much money the ultra-wealthy have. Even as a statistician, I have trouble getting to grips with the numbers. So I wanted to make it more understandable. I did some calculations and the results were astonishing. (See calculations below)
Take the Weston family. Their wealth is reported to be $10.8 billion, that’s $10,800,000,000.
If the family puts the money under a mattress (a very large mattress) and earns no more and gets no interest, for the next 50 years they would still have almost $600,000 per day to live on.
What about the Westons’ employees, say, Loblaws [a supermarket chain] workers earning $15 per hour? If they work full-time, 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year, to earn what the Westons have for every day of the next 50 years would take them almost 20 years.
And even those who have “only” $1 billion have almost $55,000 per day for the next 50 years. It would take nearly 2 years for a $15-an-hour worker to earn that.
News reports suggest the wealthy have done very well during the pandemic. These numbers show clearly that they can well afford to pay far more tax.
Sincerely,
Harry Shannon
Calculations for the Westons:
50 years is 50*365 = 18,250 days.
Which means the family has $10,800,000,000 / 18,250 = $592,000 per day.
A work week of 40 hours for 50 weeks is 2,000 hours per year.
At $15 per hour, that’s $30,000 per year.
And 592,000 / 30,000 = 19.7 years.