Chuck Collins

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Chuck Collins (b. 1959) is an author and a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, where he directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He is also cofounder of Business for Shared Prosperity, a program of Demos. Collins was the cofounder of the organizations United for a Fair Economy and Responsible Wealth in Boston, Massachusetts. He is an expert on U.S. economic inequality and has pioneered efforts to bring together investors and business leaders to speak out publicly against corporate practices and economic policies that increase economic inequality.

Collins has worked with a number of prominent wealthy individuals, including William H. Gates, Sr. and George Soros in an effort to promote tax equity. He is the great-grandson and an heir to the fortune of 19th-century meatpacking mogul Oscar Mayer and the grandson of the U.S. pianist and composer Edward Joseph Collins. He first caught attention when he gave an inheritance of $500,000 to several foundations at the age of 26.

Collins is coauthor, with William H. Gates, Sr., of the book Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes, which argues that the estate tax is both fair and necessary. He is also coauthor of Robin Hood Was Right and several other books.

He is a graduate of Hampshire College (B.A., 1984), and holds a master's degree (1987) from the School of Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University.