Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins is an American 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 co-founder of Wealth for Common Good. He is an expert on economic inequality in the US, 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 is the great-grandson of Oscar F. Mayer, the founder of the Oscar Mayer meat processing brand.
Early life
Collins was born in Madison, Wisconsin and grew up in suburban Detroit where he attended the Cranbrook Schools. At age 7, he witnessed the 1967 Detroit riots and became concerned about inequality. He was involved in social change, including Earth Day 1970. He raised money for guide dogs and informed his neighborhood about the environment at a young age.Collins first gained public attention in 1985, when he gave an inheritance of $500,000 to several foundations at the age of 26. When his libertarian conservative father Edward learned of his intentions, he was afraid his son was a Marxist, though Collins instead stated that he would rather be called a "Gandhian or Christian" and later left to live in a commune.
Education
Collins is a graduate of Hampshire College, and holds a master's degree from the School of Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University.Career
Between 1983 and 1991, Collins worked at the Institute for Community Economics, based in Greenfield, Massachusetts, providing technical advice to community land trusts and mobile home resident cooperatives. Between 1991 and 1995, he was director of the HOME Coalition in Massachusetts and a field organizer for the Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts. In 1995, he co-founded, with Felice Yeskel and S.M. Miller, United for a Fair Economy in Boston, Massachusetts, a left-leaning national organization devoted to education about growing income and wealth inequality.In 2005, he became a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he co-edits the web site, Inequality.org, and directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good. In 2008, he cofounded Wealth for the Common Good, which subsequently merged in 2015 with the Patriotic Millionaires.
At the Institute for Policy Studies, Collins research has looked at income and wealth inequality and the racial wealth divide. He has co-authored a number of studies including "Billionaire Bonanza" exploring the share of wealth flowing to the top 1 percent and Forbes 400, and the "Ever Growing Gap", which examines the future of the racial wealth divide.