There are an estimated 938 billionaires within the United States. To put that into context, that’s about two full Boeing 747s (every one holds 416 passengers). Or, that’s about half of the 1,763 seats within the Broadway Theatre, the place now you can catch The Great Gatsby. It’s additionally the common measurement of the U.S. faculty graduating class, and simply 1.1% of the 82,500 seats at MetLife Stadium.
Regardless of the way you view that 938 quantity, there’s one total resounding settlement folks have: Most voters need billionaires to pay their fair share. With two separate billionaire tax proposals now gaining traction (one nationwide and one in California particularly), a brand new ballot from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies quantifies simply how a lot the common American thinks the wealthy should pay up.
The survey, launched this month in partnership with the Los Angeles Times, discovered that 52% of California’s registered voters help a proposed one-time 5% tax on the online price of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires, while 33% oppose it.
Responses fell alongside ideological strains. Seventy-two % of Democrats again the tax, and so does 51% of no-party-preference voters. But greater than seven in 10 Republicans and strongly conservative voters oppose it.
California’s poll initiative
The California Billionaire Tax Act didn’t come from a politician however from a union. SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, representing 120,000 well being care employees, filed the poll initiative in October 2025 with a selected disaster in thoughts: federal Medicaid cuts threatening to strip well being care from greater than 3 million working-class Californians.
To design the tax, the union tapped UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, who calculated that American billionaires presently pay simply 1.3% of their wealth in taxes, down from 3.1% beneath President Ronald Reagan.
The invoice would impose a one-time, 5% levy on the worldwide internet price of any particular person price greater than $1 billion who was a California resident as of Jan. 1, 2026, paid in annual installments of 1% over 5 years. The Jan. 1 cutoff was designed to prevent the exodus that critics predicted and that at the least six billionaires—together with Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin—had tried earlier than the deadline handed.
The income is projected to be at $100 billion over 5 years and would circulate 90% into well being care, with the remaining 10% into training and meals help. The measure nonetheless wants almost 875,000 legitimate signatures by June 24 to succeed in the November poll.
Bernie’s federal tax on billionaires
There’s a separate measure to provoke the same 5% tax on billionaires nationwide. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) have proposed the “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act,” which might impose a 5% annual federal wealth tax on people price $1 billion or extra.
In its first yr, the income would fund one-time $3,000 checks for households incomes beneath $150,000, protecting roughly three-quarters of the nation. And just like the California tax, the invoice would deal with the $1.1 trillion in Medicaid and ACA cuts, along with capping childcare prices at 7% of family revenue, and establishing a $60,000 minimal wage for public college academics.
The richest man alive, Elon Musk, has countered that taxing each billionaire at 100% barely dents the $39 trillion nationwide debt. But the billionaire tax isn’t attempting to repair the debt—it’s an try to handle well being care cuts.
A separate measure for a $30-an-hour minimal wage
The billionaire tax ballot landed in the course of one thing already shifting: a $30-an-hour minimum wage marketing campaign. It’s co-led by One Fair Wage, the nationwide advocacy group whose president, Saru Jayaraman, helped convene 140 labor and neighborhood leaders in Los Angeles final June to declare a brand new period for the wage motion.
“We all agreed that the fight for $15 is long gone,” Jayaraman advised Fortune. “It’s time for a new kind of frame.”
What emerged was the idea of a dwelling wage for all, pegged to what the MIT Living Wage Calculator says it really prices to stay, with no carve-outs for tipped employees.
Since then, $30-wage payments have been launched in New York City, Hawaii, and Los Angeles. Bills for $25 per hour are advancing in D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, and federally. Twenty states stay caught on the federal flooring of $7.25, unchanged since 2009.
Two sides of the identical coin
The billionaire tax and the $30-wage campaigns share greater than timing: They share a goal.
“We see these two things in California go hand in hand,” Jayaraman stated. “There are two parts to the same plan. Billionaires should pay tax like everybody else to help contribute to society, and they should pay their employees, whose labor they profit from, enough to survive.”
She added: “Right now, billionaires are paying nothing. They should pay their fair share.
“Minimum wage is by far the most popular issue out there right now,” Jayaraman stated. “But the billionaires tax is a close second.”
