Billionaire Wealth Has Doubled So Far This Decade

[Celerity]

An estimate of a new wealth tax proposal shows that it would generate twice as much revenue as it did when it was first introduced in 2021.

https://prospect.org/2026/03/27/billionaire-wealth-has-doubled-so-far-this-decade/


Credit: Michael Nigro/Sipa USA via AP Images

Inequality has boomed so much in the 2020s that a 2 percent wealth tax on multimillionaires initially introduced in 2021 would yield more than twice as much revenue today. The analysis, from University of California, Berkeley, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, reveals the incredible volume of capital income, currently not reached by the U.S. tax code, and could prove vital for the ongoing debate about taxes that has taken over the Democratic Party in recent weeks.

On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) rereleased proposed legislation that taxes households with net wealth of over $50 million annually. The tax is set at 2 percent of total wealth; the legislation adds a 1 percent surtax for households with over $1 billion. To guard against wealthy individuals who respond to this by leaving the country—even though they move at lower rates than middle-class households, even when faced with higher taxes—it adds a 40 percent “exit tax” on anyone with net wealth over $50 million who renounces their citizenship.



Warren made the 2 percent wealth tax a hallmark of her 2020 presidential campaign. At the time, the tax, which was more punitive on billionaires—it imposed a 6 percent tax on wealth for households over $1 billion—was estimated to bring in $3.75 trillion in revenue over ten years, enough to finance universal child care and pre-kindergarten, free public colleges, student loan cancellation, and a down payment on Medicare for All, according to a campaign document.

When Warren returned to the Senate in 2021, she revised the wealth tax to look pretty much the same as it does today, with the smaller additional levy on billionaires. Saez and Zucman analyzed that bill at the time and found that it raised a more modest $3 trillion over ten years, while only affecting the top 0.05 percent of Americans. But Saez and Zucman conducted the same analysis on the new bill with updated data on the fortunes of the ultra-wealthy. And this time, they found that it would raise $6.2 trillion, more than double the original figure. This means that top-end wealth has approximately more than doubled in only five years.

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[OhioBack2Blue]

1. The MAGA hoax:

Socialism and the greatest wealth transfer to the poor if Harris gets elected. (Yes, nevermind MAGAs would have actually benefited from this. They were too stupid to understand that).

Truth: Trump enables largest ever wealth transfer to the bloated billionaires.