You Don't Make a Billion You Take a Billion by Paying Slave Wages Money Tips Podcast

Is this statement made by an American politician accurate?

By Charles Kelly, Property Solutions Investor, Author of Yes, Money Can Buy You Happiness and creator of Money Tips Podcast.

In this Money Tips Podcast episode:


Do billionaires make their money paying “slave wages”, as per Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
Bill Gates and Henry Ford paid higher than average wages and made a lot of people rich
The rich in the UK pay millions in taxes – David Beckham, JK Rowling and Sir James Dyson
Top 1% of UK earners pay 28% of all income taxes
Taxes are necessary and should be fair

”You don’t make a billion, you take a billion and make things by paying people slave wages that they can barely live on” a politician recently claimed. 

You might be forgiven for thinking that the statement came from Jeremy Corbyn or somebody in Venezuela, but it actually came for an American Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

She has been accused of promoting dangerous radical left-wing policies, not that different from European social democratic views - free healthcare, college education, higher taxes for the very wealthy and more control over the financial sector. 

She won her seat against all the odds with little or no funding and was actually working as a waitress before being elected.

However, to say that all billionaires make their money off the back of slave labour and below minimum wage pay is a little unfair.

Henry Ford actually increased wages and attracted thousands of workers to Detroit area, building forward into a multibillion-dollar company which produced cars for the masses. He was instrumental in building the American economy into a superpower through innovative mechanisation and assembly line manufacturing methods.

I don’t think you could accuse Bill Gates of paying low wages when the company has actually created thousands of millionaires through their stock options.

People are queueing up to work for the likes of Google and Facebook because their pay and benefits are out of this world.

According to the Sunday Times new tops taxpayer list, Stephen Ruben the majority shareholder of JD sports paid £181 million in tax last year.

British billionaire Denise Coates, who built her own business from a small family concern to multi-billion company, just paid £156 million in taxes.‬

Sunday Times list of highest taxpayers in the UK demonstrates that high earners contribute billions to the UK economy in productivity and net taxes.

Richest 1% in the UK contribute 28% of all income tax with notable high taxpayers like Sir Janes Dyson, David and Victoria Beckham and J. K. Rowling.

Billionaire businessman so Jim Ratcliffe have a tax liability of £110.5 million and Mike Ashley, founder of sports direct and owner of Newcastle football club paid over £30 million in taxes last year.

Politicians who go on about the rich “paying their fair share “should focus on the amount of tax collected rather than the tax rate.

If you hike up the tax rate to a top rate of 98%, as it was in the 1970s, all you do is drive away wealthy people and more importantly investment.

This has nothing to do with politics, it’s just common sense.

It has been recently demonstrated by the increase in stamp duty for multi million pound properties. What happened? The tax take went down.

Of course, we need taxes to run the country, but they need to be fair and balanced so that people have an incentive to work hard and build businesses. Countries like Hong Kong and Singapore attract businesses because they have an attractive tax system, which taxpayers have no need to evade.

If you subscribe to the politics of envy, believing that all rich people are evil and crooked, how can you be wealthy and successful yourself?

I talk about this in my book, yes, money can buy happiness, where we explore the mindset of money and success.

Can you afford to retire?

Millions of people, or over 80% of the population, will either retire in poverty or not be