All language subtitles for S01E04 Whats Next

Okay, first question.

Are you too rich?

Well, it's a strange thing

to have people worth, you know,
a billion, ten billion, a hundred billion.

It's such a mind-blowing amount of money
relative to personal needs.

I remember when I was young,
I looked at that Forbes list,

and it fascinated me just because
understanding how society works, you know,

is that real estate fortunes,
banking fortunes.

There's all these Wall Street people
on there.

Why is that such a source of wealth,

and how much is
the wealth very generational?

I remember somebody saying to me,

"Do you think
you'll ever be on this list?"

And I thought, "Well,

you know, maybe software,
the work I was doing,

would get me onto that list."

I didn't really think so
in the early years,

and then later
that... that turned out to be wrong.

Bill Gates,
with 4.2 billion dollars,

is the second-richest person
in the country.

Bill Gates, the richest man...

So is that a "yes" or a "no"?

Well, it's kind of wild
that we do have billionaires.

You know, it's a huge amount of wealth,

which, you know,
if you even tried to consume it,

would be kind of absurd.

You want that money to be given back
to society, not just consumed.

In a rich country like the US,

the fact there's still deprivation
says that our social safety net

is not funded
as well as we'd like it to be,

but I'm not someone who thinks
outlawing wealth above a certain size

is the right way to go about it.

But again, I'm...

You know, I'm... I'm biased.

Although, I understand
why some people feel that way.

You know,
and so it's... it's... it's a good debate.

When we see
sprawling tent encampments

on the sides of our highway,

nursing uniforms slumping over
from exhaustion on the subway,

poor kids visiting food pantries,

and I think the question we have to ask
over and over and over again

is, "Who benefits?"

In America, there are winners
because there are losers,

and no one has won more
than the ultrarich.

The richest 1% of Americans
own 40% of the nation's wealth.

There are over 38 million Americans
who can't afford basic necessities,

so if America's poor founded a country,

that country would be bigger
than Australia.

A billion dollars is
a thousand million dollars,

and we have billionaires
who have 200 billion.

They have 200,000 million

while we have children
who don't have any place to live.

This is insane.

Well, look, in a perfect world,
I think billionaires don't exist.

You could easily argue that

the existence of a billionaire
is a policy mistake,

especially if you see
what most billionaires do with it.

Uh...

But, anyway,

we all know there are so many ways
to exercise power with that wealth,

to influence elections, and you name it.

So if you create a society
where there's so much wealth

with so few people, then, of course,

at some point, you can't really call that
a democracy anymore.

The people who think
that we should just abolish billionaires,

those people are wrong.

Honestly, those transformative changes
would probably wreck the economy

because it'd involve building
a new economic system

that we don't know how to build.

People imagine that you'd create
this egalitarian society,

but when you look at societies
that are a lot more egalitarian than us,

they have billionaires,

and sometimes
they have quite a lot of billionaires.

You have billionaires in Japan.
You have billionaires in France.

You have billionaires in Scandinavia.

There's, you know,
how many billionaires in the world?

It's not a big number of people.

And you can say, "Yeah, having
a billion dollars, that's kinda crazy,"

but you also have to realize
that that's not the problem.

That's a symptom of something amazing.

It's the American dream.

That's what makes America special.

I'll just do this,
since we're talking about money.

All right.

I think that's only ten. Is that right?

You know,
our parents had us play lots of games. I...

We're not, like, competitive about

you know, comparing our...
our work accomplishments with each other.

That'd be... That'd be really difficult.

You win. All right.

But we're competitive in terms of
just we play lots of family games.

Remember
when he was on top of the 400?

- Isn't it the Forbes 500 now?
- 400.

Then it was kinda this funny thing
when it'd come out every year,

"Is he still at the top? Is he still
at the top? Is he still at the top? Oh."

It was a matter of interest,
and then it was, you know...

That... That competitive nature
that's in all of us was part of that too.

Like, "Okay, good. Still at the top."

Well, then I gave away enough money
to avoid that problem.

- He kept trying to get off the top.
- You didn't like it.

Mm-mm.

Yeah. It was part
of the ethos of our family.

I remember, Mom, as soon as you moved
back to Seattle with Microsoft,

one of the very early conversations
she had with you was about,

"Okay. How are you gonna give back
to the community?"

I mean, yeah, at the...

- What's it called? The bridal lunch.
- Yeah.

Uh, you know, said to...

Quoted, the, you know,

"To whom much is given,
much is expected," so...

You've talked a bit about how
you wanna get off the billionaire's list.

No, I... I'm not saying it's like
some awful thing to be on the list.

I'm just making it clear
it's not a positive thing.

I think the world would be better

if billionaires voluntarily chose
to give more money away.

You know,
if I'd never given any money away,

I would have
a lot more money than I have today.

I've always thought of myself as a student
trying to get to the bottom of things.

In the 1990s,

as I was moving
to be unbelievably wealthy,

I was studying the great foundations.

You know, what did Rockefeller do?

You know, Carnegie talked about
"To die rich is to die disgraced."

It was in the year 2000 that I made
the first gigantic 20-billion-dollar gift.

You know, the foundation, as you walk in,
says, "All lives have equal value,"

as the driving set of values
for the work we do.

Our biggest thing in the US
will be education,

you know, better curriculum,
better teacher training.

We also work in global health.

They're very complex issues,

but, you know, we were energized
to take that over a billion a year

and make sure it was... was well spent.

I'm a big proponent that the wealthy
should give back to reducing inequity,

both in this country
and in the entire world.

We have enough wealth
that we could do dramatically better.

Well, I think
we're both proud of the fact that

the US bills itself
as the land of equal opportunity,

but as capitalism has developed,

that equality hasn't been as strong
as we might like to see.

So I'm curious,

how should the US be striving
to reduce inequality?

Well, I... I think, unfortunately, Bill,
we are moving in the wrong direction.

We have the obscene situation

where there are three people,
you being one of them,

who own more wealth
than the bottom half of America.

You know, it reminds me,
maybe 150 years ago,

where the Czar of Russia
or the kings of Europe

had all this wealth and power

because of the divine right of,

"God said that you can own everything
and have all the power."

"God said that." And I don't see
a, uh, throne on your head, right?

- You're not King Bill.
- All right. You got me on that one.

But would you go so far as to have laws

that would stop there
from being billionaires?

- How would you deal with that?
- Yeah, I would.

- Okay.
- Yeah, I would.

You are, just saying you personally,
a very innovative guy.

Do you deserve financial reward for that?
You do.

How much do you deserve?

All right. Can you make it on a billion?

Think you could feed the family? Probably.

Pay the rent? Maybe.

- Again, I don't mean to be picking on you.
- Sure.

But all over the world,
we have multi-billionaires,

and with that wealth
goes incredible power.

Do I think that's acceptable? No, I don't.

So if you're asking me,
"Do I think we should eliminate

the concept of billionaires?"
Yeah, I do. I do.

You know, I have real concerns
about what I would call uber-capitalism,

and that is that incredible concentration
of wealth and power

in the hands of the few,
and what it means to our whole society.

Is the system working, in your judgment?

Is it working?

What do you think?

I am a huge believer that capitalism
is the... the right part of the solution.

Capitalism creates all this freedom
for innovation and mobility,

and in a country like the US,
because we don't believe in aristocracy,

we pride ourselves
on the idea of income mobility.

It's the idea
of creating that equal opportunity

so that people are mobile

and not stuck based on
whatever their parents' outcome was.

You know, when I was growing up,
I was a healthy white male

in an upper-middle-class family
who had access to an incredible education,

which enabled me to go to a
really great college and start a business.

I mean, the US environment and the timing
was kind of unbelievably lucky.

The Harvard dropout
who co-founded a software company

with a boyhood friend
when he was only 19 years old.

This is the richest man on Earth.

I believed in
a certain frugalness,

but I did buy myself a Porsche car
when I was 19.

So for somebody in my position,
the mobility,

the opportunity to pick a profession
and do well, was incredibly high,

but for women,

people who had health conditions,

people who weren't white,

you know, some of those opportunities
really weren't there,

and we've made progress on these issues

but nowhere near to the level that
the American dream is aspirational of.

Then it starts with paying
our young people livable wages.

Yeah!

Today we're done.

1.2 million workers have
walked off the job, out of this industry,

saying enough is enough.
We will not come back unless...

- That's right.
- Yes!

Tipped workers in Chicago
could be on the cusp of a big pay raise.

Right now they are paid
nine dollars an hour plus tips,

but the city council could make
employers pay them what others make,

nearly 16 an hour.

In the United States,
there are two tiers, at least, of wages.

There's an overall federal minimum wage
of seven dollars and twenty-five cents,

and then there's a sub-minimum wage
for tipped workers.

That sub-minimum wage varies
depending on the state.

At the federal level, it's two dollars
and thirteen cents an hour.

This is a population that actually is
overwhelmingly still to this day women,

disproportionately women of color.

We have the highest rates
of single moms of any occupation,

struggling with three times
the poverty rate of other workers.

- Using food stamps at double the rate.
- We want a fair wage...

But for the last 15, 20 years,

there have been an incredible group
of Black women leaders of One Fair Wage

in Chicago who are fighting to get
a full minimum wage with tips on top.

The money is not sustainable.

The tips
are not always the same.

Some mornings when I go home,

I can take home
anywhere from 80 to 150 dollars.

Now some days
I'll go home with just 40 dollars.

You've told me that you earn
about 15,000 dollars a year.

A year.

- That is why...
- With my public assistance.

You have to get on public assistance.

And how often did you get to see your kid?

Just when I woke him up
and sent him to school.

That would be my only mommy time,
and that went on for like two years.

Good morning, everyone and Mayor.

Today, tip workers are mostly
women like me, forced to live on tips.

Living on tips means we never know
how much we will get day after day.

So if we can have a real-life wage,
that would be good.

Thank you, thank you, and that's all
I have to say, Mayor. I'm good.

But at the end of the day,
we're dealing with capitalism, okay?

The higher-ups, they need us.

Every year, the cost of living goes up,
and we gotta stay in the industry,

and we gotta get up on our feet, and then
still rely on public assistance too,

so it isn't fair,

but they need to pay us and pay us right,

and if they don't, they're gonna lose.

In America, we'd like
for everyone to have certain basics.

That is, you know, health care,
decent education, decent housing,

and so how do we design the right systems

so we can raise that basic level
that everybody has available?

- Hi, Senator.
- Bill, how are you?

- Thanks for doing this.
- Of course. Nice to see you.

So this whole thing
of the role of government,

the role of private sector, you've had
to think about that your whole life,

and, you know,
the US is the richest country

but still short of the ideal
that we'd like.

Yeah, no question about that.

Uh, our free-enterprise system,
capitalism, if you will,

has generated extraordinary wealth.

It's not perfect. It just happens
to be better than any alternatives

that we've seen around the world.

There had been a lot of people
who've been living in poverty

under socialism, communism,
for hundreds of years.

They finally adopted
free enterprise of a sort.

China, for instance, did so,
and interestingly,

hundreds of millions of people
came out of poverty.

And when you look at
the trade-offs the US makes,

maybe versus Europe,
where they have a less dynamic economy,

but, you know, some people
would prefer us to be more like Europe.

How do you see the trade-off there?

I think if you compare
the vitality and growth

that exists in the United States
relative to that in Europe,

you'd have to say, "Gosh,
the United States seems to have things,

uh, in a better place."

Mmm.

There's no question but that
the most innovative people in the world,

if they're thinking
about starting an enterprise,

think the place to do so
is the United States.

If you look at
the billion-dollar enterprises,

they're almost all here in the US.

The so-called unicorns
are all American enterprises.

And why is that?
I mean, we have similar brains.

I happen to believe
that the risk tolerance here is greater.

Our bankruptcy laws, our financial system,

the options
that entrepreneurs are able to obtain,

these things create an environment
of risk-taking and innovation

which has led to all sorts
of successes, and by the way,

if you want people
to come out of the realms of poverty

and have better opportunity,

there's almost nothing more powerful
as an elixir than growth.

If your economy's growing,

if there are new businesses starting
and hiring more people,

why, that creates opportunity
for people to come out of poverty.

Well, socialism was a fantastic system
to make people equally poor.

Um, uh,
capitalism makes people unequally rich.

In the history of all mankind,

the countries that thrived
are those that have the most flows.

Flows of ideas,
flows of capital,

flows of people...

...and flows of power.

Can we just please remember
why economies grow?

Whether it's Henry Ford with the Model T

or Bill Gates with Microsoft,

anything that creates good jobs

helps the little guy
as well as the big guy.

What it does is it raises the floor.

It also raises the ceiling,
and where government policy should come in

is maybe shrinking the gap between
that rising floor and that rising ceiling

by investing more in public goods.

Mass transportation,
public parks, public schools

that undergird
any healthy democratic capitalist society.

- Hello.
- Hi.

Hi.

- Hi.
- Good to meet you.

- This is Connor Maxwell.
- Hey.

Let's just get into it.

One of the topics we're very interested in
at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

is the challenge of economic mobility,

but at the same time, I've found that
to... to really understand these challenges,

it's helpful to speak to people
who have developed expertise

through their own lived experiences.

Michael, Ariana, Lashana,
you three have developed expertise

from job training
to reentry and entrepreneurship.

All three of you have faced
major challenges during your upbringings

that affected your opportunities,

so I think we'd like to hear from you all
a bit about your journeys.

Um, how does that sound?

Cool? Uh, Michael,
could we start with you?

Uh, yeah.

Growing up for me,
it was, uh... it was kind of rough.

I had both my parents, losing them both
to incarceration at an early age,

and, you know, myself being incarcerated
at a young age as well.

I was incarcerated when I was 15.

Fifteen? Wow.

Uh, I wasn't released until I was 28.

Twenty-eight?

- Twenty-eight, yes.
- Wow.

So that was... that was an important moment,
you know, of my life,

so, uh, upon release,

there wasn't really too much
as far as reentry programs

or help to get jobs,

or, you know, even the simplest help
with, you know, making up a resume.

When you were leaving,
what did they give you or provide

to help you with the next step?

Uh, two hundred dollars out the gate.

That's it.

Someone else I was incarcerated with
was like, "You should try driving trucks,"

but what really sparked it
was my son overheard it,

and he was like,
"Oh, that'd be cool. You should do it."

All right.

He's pretty stoked. He can't wait
to go on the summer road trip.

Great. Um, Ariana, do you want to share
a bit about your background?

Yeah. Um, so I am an,

uh, one of the over...
older siblings of four.

Grew up in an abusive home, um,
at the time.

Around six or seven,
the resources dried up,

and so we moved to deep East Oakland,

and it's not, um,

the most well-resourced area.

Poverty is oftentimes linked
with the dollars and cents,

and we don't talk about that mental toll
that it can take on a person.

My mom was constantly hustling.

She would work multiple jobs.

Having a lack of resources,
particularly money,

it affects your every move.

Like, it affects where you live

and whether you have access
to grocery stores

and whether you have access
to a car, schools.

It permeates
through every single aspect of your life.

That in itself creates
a traumatic response.

What ends up happening is
you're in this constant state of survival.

You're not able to look further out
and... and plan for the future

because you're... you're worried
about dinner.

And so when you're in
that survival mindset,

your mind is constantly going.

You don't have time
to plan for the future.

You don't have space to dream.

Inequality
is very difficult because

it's not just purely an income thing

but their quality of life.

Where I know where
my next meal is coming from.

I know that I'll have shelter tonight.

I have a chance
to have my children be educated.

You know, we want to be a land
where people start their own businesses

and feel a sense of achievement and not,
you know, caught

in a system where they...

are deprived.

I like the word "inequality"

because I find, ironically,
that it's an inclusive word.

It evokes a relationship

between people at the top
and those who are struggling to survive.

We are all on this shared spectrum

that also includes billionaires,

and it's one nation.

What does it take to close the gap
between what you have and what you need

in order to not just survive
but advance in America?

And increasingly, that gap is very wide,

but however we talk about this problem,
whether it's as inequality or social...

Is that a...?

That's probably a BLADE helicopter
going to the Hamptons.

- I'm serious.
- It is Friday.

Oh my God.

One of the reasons people think
this is an intractable problem

is the fact that
there are so many aspects to it.

You know, we could look at this
as a problem of health care.

Roughly a third of the country don't have
regular access to medical care.

It's a problem of education

and the caliber of the education
you are eligible to receive,

and it's a problem of income.

I think we have to zoom out as well,

and then we see that
the differences are just astounding.

If you have a median wage

in a country like the Netherlands,
or from the US,

then you're already part
of the richest 5% in the world.

More than half of the world population
lives on less than seven dollars a day.

But also there's inequality
within the inequality.

Very often there's a gender divide.

Very often
those communities are Black and brown.

The problems of race and the problems
of class are not the same,

but they do overlap.

We can see that time and time again

that these ideologies
are so braided together.

The success of labor unions

and relatively high wages
in the middle third of the 20th century,

but segregation prevents Black people
from having access to that.

Currently, the median white household
has about ten times the wealth

of the median Black household.

One of the more notable things we saw
in the midst of the pandemic

was that the same communities
were being disproportionately affected

by disparate mortality rates,

police violence
at a disproportionate level,

and so there's a racial correlation
to these dynamics

that further exacerbates

the overall problem
of inequality in the society.

I don't think we've really come up with
a good way of sort of addressing this,

but the United States
did a pretty good job.

We had the New Deal.

We implemented Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid, things like that,

and so we cobbled together
a social democratic state in America,

and people who imagine the United States
as some hyper-capitalist wasteland,

those people are wrong,

but making a more egalitarian society
with a basic sort of level of subsistence,

a lot of countries
have done really well in this.

We've done less well,
and we need to do better.

Maybe it's just my optimism,
but in... in our lifetimes,

the progress on the overall wealth,
the safety net, education,

we did get through
a lot of tough challenges.

Do you think over time
we can continue to make progress on that?

Today there are these culture battles

and demonization
of people across the aisle.

And so policy, uh, the kinds of things
that help people come out of poverty,

has taken a back seat.

I do think that our political parties
are casting around a bit.

They don't quite know where to go.

So my party, for instance,

now is almost two-thirds made up
of individuals without college education.

And these are people who, I presume,
would like to see a higher minimum wage,

but our orthodoxy in the Republican Party
for a long time has been

"Don't raise the minimum wage."
That's what business has been saying.

Well, what are we gonna do?

And that confusion has been,
to a certain degree, responsible

for the lack of actual progress on dealing
with some of the challenges we have,

so we have got to tackle this issue.

Does it mean some changes in tax policy?

Absolutely. I think there are
some anomalies in our tax policy

that I think ought to be adjusted.

Does it mean some things we're spending on
we need to cut back on? Absolutely.

This is one of
the wonderful things about history.

It gives you a little bit of perspective
about what's possible

because sometimes people say,

"Oh, higher taxes,
surely that's impossible."

"That's never been done."

Well, actually...

...in the '50s and the '60s,

taxation rates were
as high as 80, 90% for the very rich.

It turns out that economic growth was
never as high as in the '50s and the '60s.

There was
an enormous amount of innovation,

and there was actually a slowdown
in innovation in the '80s and the '90s.

We need these deeper investments
in the public good.

That's democracy, right?

Taxes are our collective investment
in the public good.

Well, it's weird that in the US, you know,
the trend has been to reduce taxation,

but I'm amazed that the rich aren't taxed
substantially more than they are.

If you raise taxes a fair bit,

there should be enough
to somewhat raise the safety net,

which is not as well-funded
as I would make it...

Other people might go
even further than I would, but...

One thing I think you and I would agree on
is that the tax system is a key tool

to moderate what capitalism does,

where you have
these extreme winners like myself,

and so, you know,
under the tax system I would go for,

the wealthy would have,
say, a third as much.

Well, needless to say,
I would go a lot further.

And I think, you know...

Your friend Warren Buffett makes the point

that his effective tax rate
is lower than his secretary's.

And that is not
what the American people wanna see.

They do wanna see
the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes,

but you have a political system

which, unfortunately,
represents the needs of the wealthy

much more than the needs
of ordinary Americans.

You know,
they do these happiness questionnaires.

- Have you seen that?
- Oh yeah.

What they find is countries
where people have that economic security,

as in Scandinavia, usually Denmark
or Finland or somebody, ranks at the top.

Why is that?

I think it's because people don't have
to deal with the stress

about how they're gonna feed their kids
or provide health care or childcare.

If you take that level of economic stress,

if I say to somebody,

"You're never gonna have to worry about
whether you're gonna feed your family,

whether your kid'll have health care."

Thank you.

Is it gonna make their life perfect? No.

Will it ease their stress level,
bring more happiness, security?

I think it will.

I recently tweeted
that I was paying a whole lot in taxes,

and I was proud of that.

One of the most patriotic things
that you can do as an American

is go out, and get filthy, stinkin' rich,
create a ton of jobs,

invest in your company and others,

and then pay your taxes.

Look, I'm the luckiest motherfucker
in the world,

and when I write that check to the IRS

for all those
hundreds of millions of dollars,

it's not that I like it,

but I am proud of it

because, you know,
the roads, the military, the police,

teachers, Medicaid, Medicare,

that's a big part
of where our taxpayer dollars go,

and I feel like I've given something back.

People love to say
that there is no silver bullet

when it comes to solving inequality.

I'd like to challenge that idea.

I think there is, in a very broad sense,
a silver bullet, relief.

These are things
ranging from universal pre-K

to supportive housing

to livable wage,

even things like a universal basic income.

We have to have an income floor.
We can get rid of poverty in our country.

Whenever there is talk
of such interventions,

the response is, "That costs too much."

Stunning amount the US spent
last year on welfare programs.

The problem with
that line of thinking is that

it presumes that by not investing
in these costly programs,

we are saving money,

and the fact is, we aren't.

We're paying for poverty every day

in reduced productivity
in the labor market,

in terms of increased costs
related to crime and health.

Sociologist Mark Rank estimates
that the cost of child poverty in America

is about $1 trillion a year.

Another problem we face is
there are a lot of programs

that are very important and helpful
to a lot of people who need them,

but we don't make it easy.

In fact, we make it very difficult
to get any benefits.

Even those that are there,
by law, for you.

So, Bill, you know about
the Earned Income Tax Credit.

It's not easy to get.

This is the two-page 1040,

and this is
the hundred-plus page instruction manual

that goes along with this two-page form.

And so we are going to see
if you could help a person

apply for the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Bill, I think I might hand you a pencil
just in case.

The Earned Income Tax Credit
is the most important tax credit

that is available to low
and moderate-income households.

It can be in the sum
of thousands of dollars.

It is considered the largest
anti-poverty program in the country.

So it's incredibly important
to calculate this correctly.

We're gonna start with an example.
And that is Maria Johnson.

- I like her photo.
- Yeah.

She is a single parent
of two children.

She works two jobs.
So, multiple jobs, multiple kids.

If you have any questions...

In the Earned Income Tax Credit,

if you add up the amount
of money unclaimed each year,

they leave about 17 billion dollars
a year on the table.

"Church employee, clergy..."
Oh my God, "Combat Pay."

And if you add up
the total in unused aid, every year,

over 140 billion dollars
in poverty aid goes unclaimed.

We've saddled these programs
with administrative burden.

And I think it should be just as easy

for someone to apply
for unemployment insurance or food stamps

as it is for me
to take out my phone and order like,

birdseed or whatever, and get it
delivered to me the next day.

- The answer is "no."
- Okay. Wow, that's a doozy.

How confident are you
that you filled it out correctly?

There's a lot of money,
as you saw, on the line here.

I'm 80% sure that I got that thing right.

I'll hand you the sheet, so you
can compare it with what you came up with.

So, I was off by 5,000 dollars.

Whoops.

I'm used to these forms,
but these are complicated forms.

- I mean, you're skipping around...
- Right.

...and reading definitions.

- Right.
- Oh my God.

On top of working your two jobs
and raising two children.

- Raising twins.
- Raising your twins.

The complexity
of how a poor person has to deal

with state-level programs,
federal programs,

it's super complicated.

And many of those programs,
the people who are eligible,

less than nearly half are actually able
to take advantage of it.

In some ways, you could say that's
the half that is the most in need of it.

It's hard, particularly when they're
facing a crisis, to get what's needed.

"Thus."

I've never once spoken to my brother
about taxes. Not one time.

- I've talked to Kristi a bit.
- I hope so.

Kristi actually did my taxes.

So, what do we got?

Uh, 82, 97 and 93.

- Wow.
- You're ahead.

I have all vowels at this point.

You're the one
who's been keeping 'em.

Yeah,
Kristi and I are a lot alike.

One difference between us is,

you know, I've kind of been spoiled,
gotten lucky in so many things,

but, you know, I always had
kind of an optimistic outlook.

I think for an entrepreneur,
that's how you get successful.

No, it's very helpful.

Then, particularly if it goes well,
it... it gets reinforced even more.

- So where are you on that?
- I'm in between you two somewhere.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

But, you know,
I don't think, without his optimism,

how does he kind of keep going
with all this philanthropy, you know,

'cause it... it... it feels daunting.

But the way his brain works,
he's probably, in his mind,

he's kind of got an idea
of how these things might be resolved.

Um, so, when the rest of us are thinking
things are hopeless, he has a... a plan.

This past summer, Warren Buffett
and Bill and Melinda Gates

announced their idea of the Giving Pledge.

They're asking America's billionaires

to join them to give
at least half their wealth away.

Well,
Warren and Melinda and I got together

with people
who were substantial philanthropists

and just had some dinners
where we talked about,

"How did you pick your causes?"
"Why are you so engaged?"

"Why do you think many others are not?"

And it became clear that in philanthropy,
you're... you're kind of isolated.

It forces you to think about your death,
your will, and all these topics

that are often easier to just ignore
and think about dealing with later.

When they sign, what does it mean?

That they're gonna give
most of their money away?

- Or some...
- The majority.

And of the people who belong, you know,
a lot are going to give 99% away.

You know, asking wealthy people
to give away at least half,

you know,
I'm surprised how well it's worked.

It became clear that there's quite a few
who view their fortune as dynastic,

so they want, you know,
to pass it on to their children.

And then there's a lot of people

who just haven't faced the issues
of who's gonna give it away.

But the people who've joined the pledge
have learned from each other,

inspired each other,
and we'd hoped we'd get dozens,

and now we're up over 300 people.

By giving away his wealth,

Bill Gates is essentially imposing

an income and wealth tax on himself.

And I think what he's doing raises
a really interesting question, which is,

should he be able to decide what to do
with his money rather than the government?

And you can see arguments on both sides.

The problem, though,

is that many billionaires
don't act like Bill Gates.

They either hoard their money
or, if they give it up,

it's to things that aren't necessarily
for the public good.

Some people say, "Well, the billionaires,
they give a lot back."

I am super unimpressed.

I mean, most billionaire philanthropy
is basically about putting your name

on some fancy university building
or a museum. It's just vanity.

Of course, charity has
an ego-reputation element in it,

and yet, at the end of the day,
you have to ask,

"Does it really improve society?"

What about
a billionaire like Bill Gates?

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
has saved millions and millions of lives.

I... I don't think anyone can deny that,

but on the other hand,

I would much rather move to a world
where properly funded governments

do the work
that these rare philanthropies do.

The Gates Foundation funds
cutting-edge and experimental ventures

that government agencies,
which are beholden to taxpayers, may not.

India is a very important place
for our foundation work.

We've been able to work together
with the government,

because they share the goal of reducing
the inequality and lifting people up.

It was clear that we could pick the people

who were already devoting
their lives to these issues

and fund them aggressively
and set ambitious goals.

Bill, as we've looked
at the inequality question in India,

women aren't afforded
the same access to opportunities.

So, one of the key programs
that the government has rolled out

is the self-help groups.

These are groups
of 10 to 20 women at the village.

Things that mobilize information,
expands their access to markets,

access to banking services.

We see many women
then start a small business.

Today, we have 90 million women organized.

They together have saved
6 billion dollars.

Why did you take the loan?

For my farm.

We believe if we can
continue to grow this kind of enterprise,

we can actually create
50 to 75 million jobs

in rural India in the near future.

- We are the women of India.
- We are the women of India.

- We're not flowers but sparks of fire.
- We're not flowers but sparks of fire.

You know,
you have to be able to say

there's still a lot of awful inequality

and we've made
mind-blowing progress on this issue.

Our awareness of the bad stuff
is high enough

that people are often confused into
thinking that the world is getting worse.

So I sometimes find myself saying,

"Hey, wait a minute. Let's learn
from the cases where we have done well

and the incredible progress
that we've made."

Today marks the start of the end
for sub-minimum wages in Chicago.

Thirty-six yeas.

Just hours ago,

the city council voted
to abolish that system.

This matter has passed.

That was the first time
in my 22 years of organizing

we saw the majority of legislators say,

"No, we actually have
to stand with workers."

The bill in Chicago is going to mean
that these workers can support themselves,

public assistance usage is gonna go down.

That is what is so historic
about this moment.

And it is at every level,

from the highly paid actors
to the lowest paid restaurant workers.

People are standing up
and demanding more.

What does this mean?

This could be the end of low-wage work
as we know it right now.

When you look at the long span
of these questions...

what you actually see
is that inequality is not static.

In 1964,

when the Johnson administration
launched the war on poverty,

ten years after, the poverty line
was half of what it was in 1960.

It made a big difference.

And if so much was accomplished despite
the odds, one big reason

was because normal, everyday Americans

put pressure on their lawmakers,

raised this issue
with the American public.

That means the best road
we have to ending poverty

is to bind ourselves together
and demand this.

It needs and demands
the attention

of the smartest people around
and the most powerful people around.

Not just activists on the ground,
but billionaires like Bill Gates.

I'm excited
about our next 20 years,

which is when we'll spend all this money.

You know, there are so many innovations
coming in the future,

and there's nothing
that has to be just for the elite.