Wealth inequality and social mobility news

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[firestar464]

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[firestar464]

https://bsky.app/profile/madison8.bsky. ... bwmpq22m25

No lie detected… because Bezos hardly pays anything on taxes. That needs to be corrected fast.

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

More on that by ABC7:

https://abc7ny.com/post/nyc-mayor-zohra ... /19173941/

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[firestar464]

More on that by Gothamist:

https://gothamist.com/news/mamdanis-new ... me-renters

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[firestar464]

It was Britain’s most expensive house. Why is its only resident a homeless man who lives on the porch?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... tland-gate

[caltrek]

Yes, We Can—Just Tax The Rich
By Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis
June 12, 2026

Introduction:

(Liberal Currents) A growing chorus of liberal commentators has taken to dismissing Democratic proposals for middle-class tax relief as “slopulism”—a portmanteau meant to convey that these proposals are sloppy, unserious, and designed to win votes rather than govern. And this isn’t entirely without merit. Many of these proposals lack the detail and rigor required to truly resolve our structural financial issues. For there are real financial constraints that must be taken into account when deciding spending and taxation.

Regardless of one’s views on the importance of the deficit, the United States must service its loans, and the cost of servicing these loans continues to rise. At $734 billion per year debt service is now more expensive than Medicare ($708 billion)—at a time when we need to be discussing how to expand our public healthcare system. Projecting deficit levels out based on current law, the cost of debt service is only going to grow as a proportion of the federal budget, crowding out whatever ambitious social programs we may envision—and this is setting aside the possibility that Donald Trump's economic chaos will drive up interest rates.

Or so we are told. But the problem with this framing is that it operates from the baseline of a low-tax economy. The baseline of a political economy that has been deeply slanted towards the interests of the already-wealthy.

In reality, the tax “reforms” of the 21st century—the Bush era tax cuts, the TCJA, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)—have both funneled wealth upwards and ballooned the deficit and debt by reducing the tax burden of the richest Americans. These were political choices, made in response to the dominance of the right-wing tax-cut trickle-down paradigm, and they can be unmade.

This piece is not a detailed legislative package, but a breakdown of just how little we need to raise taxes on the middle class in order to stabilize our financial position. The wealthy have avoided paying their fair share by shifting to forms of income that are not taxed as income because they are derived from wealth. We can fix the deficit and even fund powerful new programs if we are willing to tackle this chicanery.

Read more here: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/yes-we ... he-rich/

[caltrek]

California Billionaire Tax Qualifies for November Ballot
By Sara Libby
June 17, 2026

Introduction:

(San Francisco Chronicle via MSN) A wildly controversial measure to tax California's billionaires has qualified for the November ballot, Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a memo to California election officials Wednesday evening, ensuring a brutal and expensive campaign that will take place as voters also decide which party will control Congress and the governorship.

The measure, backed by the powerful healthcare workers union Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time, 5% tax on anyone worth over $1 billion. It would apply retroactively to people living in California on Jan. 1, 2026. The tax would be paid in 2027, or billionaires could opt to spread the payments out over five years, but would have to pay more for that option.

The plan reflects an attempt to tax billionaires' total wealth, since many get their money from sources that go far beyond a salary - including stocks and other investments and the value of their business holdings. But real estate and retirement accounts would not count toward a person's taxable wealth.

The money generated would be directed into special funds administered by the state controller and the Franchise Tax Board and would mostly go toward health care spending, which has been severely cut under President Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office estimated the tax would generate tens of billions of dollars for the state over several years, but cautioned it would be hard to predict the ultimate total because of many factors.

Read more here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politic ... b1&ei=99

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[wjfox]

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[caltrek]

‘Major Momentum’ as California Democratic Party Endorses Billionaire Wealth Tax
By Jake Johnson
August 3, 2026

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) The California Democratic Party on Sunday endorsed a state ballot measure that would impose a one-time, 5% wealth tax on billionaire residents, a popular initiative that has drawn opposition from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and ultra-rich corporate executives who are spending big to defeat it.

California Democrats’ executive board voted 145-90 on Sunday to endorse the billionaire wealth tax, which will appear on the November ballot as Proposition 40. The Sacramento Bee reported that “delegates and observers erupted into cheers” following the vote, which barely cleared the 60% threshold needed for a formal endorsement.

Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the union leading the campaign for the ballot initiative, said the California Democratic Party’s endorsement of the proposal “puts to rest the idea that California Democrats are not united by the billionaire tax—they are.”

“Polling shows that more than 80% of registered Democrats support this critical solution to our healthcare crisis,” said Regan, “and now the Democratic Party of California has officially embraced that strong support through this endorsement.”

If approved by voters and enacted, the tax would raise an estimated $100 billion in revenue that could be used to offset the impact of federal Medicaid cuts and bolster California’s education system.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/cali ... ire-tax

caltrek’s comment: There is a kind of socialism-in-one -country argument against the tax. That is, that billionaires will flee the state if such tax policies prevail. Personally, I think that argument is exaggerated in that there are a lot of reasons billionaires live and locate business activities in the state that will not be wiped out by a modest wealth tax. Still, that is something I could easily be wrong about. Something to watch in the whole wealth inequality debate.

[firestar464]

they still have to access the US market at the end of the day