Jamie Dimon:
I will give you my theory and a bunch of things that caused it.
We had this financial crisis that hurt a lot of people, discredited a lot of Wall Street, and that, I think was part of it. If you look at the income levels in America, we had very slow growth for 20 years. And then if you look at the bottom 20 percent, they didn't have a pay increase for 20 or 30 years, OK? So, and those are people making less than $20 an hour.
They also have worse health, less insurance. They're dying 10 years younger, but their schools are failing in a lot of cases, rural schools or inner-city high schools, not all of them. But a lot of them, 50 percent of the kids don't graduate. So the equal opportunity wasn't there. Income isn't there. Hope isn't there. Health wasn't there.
All of us should look at that and say, what should we do to lift up society? Then I also think there's that, and then there's also this constant degrading of fellow Americans because of what they believe. They don't believe what you believe, they're bad people, they're immoral people.
I think we should stop insulting each other.
Jamie Dimon:
I will give you a bunch right here.
Earned Income Tax Credit, OK? Right now, if you're a single mother with two children making $14,000 a year, the government gives you $6,000. A lot of people don't avail themselves of this because they may not know about it. I would get rid of the child requirement. I would make the benefit $10,000, so that anyone working would make $24,000.
That money would go to the families. It would go into their communities. It would be spent the way they think it should be spent without government interference. I think it'd be exceptional. And jobs create dignity. So you incent jobs, jobs create dignity, jobs create better outcomes for families, less crime, less drugs, and you would incent people back in the work force.
If I was the federal government, I would tell every high school — I'd start in the high schools and community colleges — that we want to measure you on the outcomes. How many kids get jobs making $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000? And that would incent them to, locally, what do we need to get jobs, coding, automotive, aviation, program management, financial management, compliance?
It is doable, because I can point out tons of schools and tons of communities that actually do something like that.
Jamie Dimon:
I think there — obviously, there are good companies and bad companies and good politicians and bad politicians.
And are there examples where they are the ones who made it worse in some cases? Sure. Have they abused their position or regulated — sure. Has something taken place? But most of the banks I know have special programs for minority mortgages, vets. We have programs to hire disabled.
And all these things work. So a lot of companies, they try to do their part. They can't do the part that government needs to do. We can help. And when you get — there are examples where I call up CEOs and I tell them they should be embarrassed about what they did. So there is truth that they aren't always perfect.
I think a lot of companies, when they go to Washington, D.C., they should worry more about what's good for the country than what's good for their company. That's true for a lot of special interest groups.
But I have to be very clear. It's not enough, if the federal government doesn't do its part, because you're really push — sometimes, you're pushing the rock uphill.
Judy Woodruff:
As for the major party presidential nominees, Dimon knows them both. In 2012, he engaged in tense negotiations with then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris over a multibillion-dollar settlement related to homeowners hurt by predatory lenders, including J.P. Morgan Chase.
More recently, former President Trump suggested Dimon could serve as his Treasury secretary in his next administration, but then quickly dispelled that idea.
Whomever wins in November, Dimon says he's hopeful the country will find a way forward.
Given all this, I mean, given this polarized atmosphere, can the United States move ahead on the great challenges facing this country in this next administration?
Jamie Dimon:
I believe it will and that some — it may — it will be a president or a leader or someone else who just — kind of just bends that curve a little bit, and does it respectfully.
Remember, Abe Lincoln — I think it was one of those famous quotes where Abe Lincoln said — someone said: "Mr. Lincoln, God's on our side."
And he said: "No, son, let's hope we're on God's side."
There was a little humility within Abe Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents. And so things come along where people change. And it might be the leader — it might be a leader himself who changes. They realize that they're going the wrong direction, and they have to go in a different direction.
And so let's all hope. I'm an optimist by nature. And I think, when Warren Buffett talks about the great resiliency of America, I believe that. Something will change it somewhere. And, sometimes, you have to go through difficult times to do it.
