Billionaire Jamie Dimon says the rich should pay more to fund tax cuts for lower-income Americans
- Jamie Dimon said increasing taxes for the rich could enable tax cuts for lower-income workers.
- He said his New York friends "hate" him for wanting to tax the wealthy more.
JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon said that rich people should pay more taxes to help struggling lower-income Americans.
Speaking at a panel discussion in Washington with the Bipartisan Policy Center on Friday, Dimon discussed how the high cost of living is leaving some people behind.
"That population of lower-income folks have more crime, worse health, less good schools," he said.
Dimon, who has previously hinted that he could run for office, spoke about how the Earned Income Tax Credit or EITC could be expanded. The EITC is a refundable tax credit aimed at reducing some of the tax lower-income Americans have to pay annually.
"This is like a no-brainer to lift up society, and I would pay for it by taxing the wealthy a little bit more," he said.
In 2023, Americans earning an annual income between $17,640 and $56,838 a year qualified for it. Married filers had to earn between $24,210 and $63,398 to qualify. And those eligible could receive a credit between $600 and $7,430.
Dimon said that "there are so many tax breaks out there that shouldn't be there" for wealthy people. Per Bloomberg, Dimon currently has a net worth of $2.4 billion.
He added that "all my friends in New York hate me" because of this view.
A 2023 paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that children exposed to the EITC at a young age were kept out of poverty for years after and were less likely to receive public assistance.
"We think this is a powerful finding because it suggests that investing in children today can have long-term societal benefits in the form of reducing poverty and public assistance use," Katherine Michelmore, associate professor at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy who co-authored the study, previously told Business Insider.