Plan B Forum

US billionaires pledge 50% of their wealth to charity

Bill Gates Microsoft founder Bill Gates started the campaign along with investor Warren Buffet

Thirty-eight US billionaires have pledged at least 50% of their wealth to charity through a campaign started by investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

They include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, CNN founder Ted Turner and entertainment executive Barry Diller.

"The Giving Pledge" lists all the families and individuals who have committed to the project.

The site says the pledge is a "moral commitment" not a "legal contract".

Mr Buffett, the chief executive of the investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, pledged 99% of his money to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and family charities in 2006.

Forbes Magazine estimated Mr Buffett's wealth at $47bn (£29bn) in March.

Bill Gates, who Forbes rates as the world's second wealthiest person, has also given away more than $28bn to his foundation.

There are 403 billionaires living in the US, according to Forbes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10870361

The economic recovery in the US has stalled and for the 15 million unemployed Americans, the land of opportunity seems anything but. Almost 50% of the unemployed have not had a job for at least six months, double the level of previous downturns.

Newsnight's Peter Marshall witnessed the effects in Nevada - the state with the highest unemployment level.

"Three years ago we had good jobs and comfortable lives," explains Ben Costiloe, as he and his wife, Coral, show us around their beaten-up trailer in the Nevada desert - a few miles outside Reno.

Inside the trailer it is cramped and the heat is stifling. Yet the couple are grateful to at least have somewhere they can call home.

"I grew up in a comfortable middle-class family," says 57-year-old Coral. "I never dreamed I'd be as close to homeless as we were last year. I never dreamed I'd be close to homeless - ever."

Ben and Coral Costiloe lost their jobs and cannot afford to rent

Unemployment has pushed the Costiloes to the foot of the property ladder. When they both lost their jobs and were unable to find new ones, even renting a place in the city became unaffordable.

So Ben, 47, salvaged, then patched up, the tiny trailer that a relative had already abandoned for scrap.

"At the time this situation fell on us like a tonne of bricks. We had to make drastic moves that could preserve our ability to stay alive," Ben explains.

Relying on charity is another such move. I first met Ben and Coral queuing for free food at a church in a suburb of Sparks, near Reno.

But the Costiloes are not alone.

Many among America's middle class have joined the ranks of the unemployed who are now slipping towards poverty. Those who donated in the past are now the ones asking for help.

The Food Bank of Northern Nevada, which works with charities and federal programmes to distribute food, says 124,000 people, including 50,000 children, have received free food in the region in the past year. A figure three times higher than before the downturn.

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