(May 26, 2026)

A California ballot initiative that will be put to voters in November would tax just 5 percent of billionaires’ fortunes over five years. This trailblazing wealth tax would be a small (for the ultrawealthy) but important (for everyone else) step toward raising needed tax revenue and curbing the state’s runaway inequality.

The billionaire class in California includes roughly 250 households, a mere 0.001 percent of the state’s families. Yet its wealth now amounts to more than half of California’s entire annual economic output.

This means that if these billionaires spent all of their wealth, they could buy more than half of the goods and services produced in a year in the entire state.