While stock buybacks have plenty of critics, many economists say the money is better off flowing into investors’ pockets and into the economy instead of sitting in Apple’s coffers.

“The money isn’t disappearing,” said Alan Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “Apple is basically saying: We have all this money and we prefer not to invest it right now, so we’ll give it to our shareholders.”

Still, Apple’s decision to return so much cash to investors is likely to provide more grist for liberal politicians who argue that giant stock buybacks are manipulations of the stock market.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, and Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont and Democratic presidential candidate, recently proposed restricting such buybacks, saying they increase inequality by putting billions of dollars in the pockets of wealthy shareholders instead of into new plants and higher wages.

“It’s total insanity,” said Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and former presidential candidate. “The main incentive, which they will not admit to, is it improves the metrics for executive compensation that consultants develop for them.”

Mr. Nader and other corporate critics say Apple could spend a small fraction of the $75 billion it plans to give to investors on a way to effectively recycle the world’s computer waste, cut the prices of iPhones that have swelled past $1,000, or increase the pay of its contract workers in China. Apple has said the starting pay for workers at the world’s biggest iPhone factory, in Zhengzhou, China, is about $3.15 an hour.

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But some economists say that thinking is simplistic: Corporations aren’t the government and shouldn’t be expected to invest large sums in ventures that won’t contribute to profits.