@sgp
Co-editor, Inequality.org Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow and author, ‘The Rich Don’t Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970’ and ‘The Case for a Maximum Wage’
Corporations with huge CEO-worker pay gaps should pay more in taxes. The wider the gap, the higher that tax bill should be.
At the municipal level, progressives are now making real progress toward that goal.
@thenation.com @sarahanderson.bsky.social www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Well off our media front pages, GOP lawmakers in Congress are pushing for big tax cuts on capital gains income. The top 0.1% would see an average tax cut of $350,000 from indexing gains. The bottom 40% would see no real benefit at all.
The latest Forbes wealth data dump: Over the last 20 years, just 6 billionaires have shared the title of world’s richest person. Over the last single year, #billionaires worldwide have added $4 trillion to their combined fortunes.
#inequality #plutocracy www.forbes.com/sites/chasew...
Google mega-billionaire Sergey Brin and his pals are trying to trick Californians into backing an anodyne state ballot proposition that would amount to a veto on a proposed tax on #billionaires that has widespread voter support. #inequality prospect.org/2026/03/10/g...
The Billionaire Tax Act proposed by California union and community groups is nearing the 875,000 signatures needed to get onto November’s ballot. The act would put a 5% tax on the wealth of all billionaires who started 2026 living in California. oligarchwatch.substack.com/p/200-billio...
Plutocracy by the numbers: In the 2024 federal elections, a new analysis shows, 300 #billionaires and their families donated over $3 billion — 19% of all contributions — either directly or through political action committees.
#inequality #wealth www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...
We have plenty of evidence that oligarchs’ “contributions” to society often boil down to things society would have happily done without.
#inequality #billionaires
People paying $3.50 at the pumps, instead of $2.80, amounts to the same as the government imposing a 70-cent gallon gas tax. The difference: Instead of the money going to the government, “it’s going to the oil and gas industry, Donald Trump’s campaign contributors.” www.patreon.com/posts/winnin...
#Crypto “was supposed to democratize finance, creating a more equitable system” that would bypass traditional banking’s concentrated wealth. The reality: Crypto’s early dynamics have “created one of the most concentrated wealth structures of any major asset class.” www.tekedia.com/satoshis-bil...
China’s richest 1% hold 31% of their nation’s personal wealth. The comparable top 1% wealth shares elsewhere: 58% in Russia, 50% in Brazil, 41% in India, and 35% in the US.
#inequality thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2026/03/08/c...
Next Monday marks the day when an American making $1 million in annual paycheck income stops paying into Social Security for the year.
Kristi Noem’s legacy: Back in 2017, then-Rep. Noem told a whopper about her family experience with the federal estate tax. That fib helped gut what Noem called the “death tax” — and has saved America’s richest mega billions. @ips-dc.org @inequality.org www.commondreams.org/opinion/noem...
Monday marks the day when an American making $1 million in annual paycheck income stops paying into Social Security for the year.
The people deciding how much AI risk humanity must accept just happen to be the people with the least personal exposure to that risk.
#AI #inequality siliconcanals.com/sc-d-the-bil...
“Policymakers need to crack down on poverty wage business models that benefit only those at the top.”
@ips-dc.org #inequality #billionaires inequality.org/article/20-c...
Just out: a new global #billionaire scorecard. Elon Musk ($792 billion), Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ($300 billion), and Alphabet/Google’s Larry Page ($281 billion) occupy the list’s top three slots. Globally, the billionaire tally has now topped 4,000. www.scmp.com/business/chi...
Best litmus test for 2028 White House hopefuls: “Do they support a wealth tax? If they do not, they are not going to be willing to attack the underlying problem that got us to our troubling position in the first place.” #inequality @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-real-l...
Had all the top 20 US low-wage firms spent their stock buyback cash on worker pay in 2024, a million workers would have seen their pay go from $29,087 to $59,600. Instead, median pay at the 20 firms dropped from 2019 to 2024, after inflation, by 4.6%. @ips-dc.org www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Who's bankrolling the new Iran war? Americans without tax loopholes.
ips-dc.org/how-much-is-...
An effective “abundance agenda” would radically reduce the importance of government-granted patent and copyright monopolies and, in the process, trim the incomes of our richest. That may explain why we don’t have an effective abundance agenda. @deanbaker13.bsky.social www.patreon.com/posts/real-a...
Households in America’s richest 1% of U.S. have a minimum net worth of $11.1 million and together hold about $25.6 trillion worth of stocks and mutual funds, the same amount as the remaining 99%. Over half that $25.6 trillion sits in the hands of the top 0.1%. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/u...
The Saudi Public Investment Fund pays Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner $25 million annually for handling its $2 billion investment in Kushner’s private equity fund, just one of the many conflicts of interest that have juiced Team Trump’s latest rush to war. popular.info/p/the-money-...
What was private equity's top exec, Leon Black, doing while his financial firm was milking companies dry? He was spending over $1 billion, over a single 5-year period, on wild parties, a Picasso, and various other must-haves ranging from jewelry to fine apparel. www.levernews.com/lifestyles-o...
The United States now sports a huge new pro-Trump media empire, with CBS, CNN, HBO, Comedy Central, and TikTok all under the control of Trump mega-billionaire crony Larry Ellison and his son David.
#democracy #billionaires robertreich.substack.com/p/suddenly-a...
Our richest live amid ever more obscene luxury while our richest president ever inflicts ever greater carnage on innocents in Iran to pump up his plummeting popularity.
#inequality #billionaires www.mansionglobal.com/articles/flo...
First, Fox News. Now with CBS and also CNN, after the Ellison takeover of Warner Brothers, right-wing #billionaires may soon essentially have the capacity “to suppress any news of the world that runs counter to their political agenda.” @deanbaker13.bsky.social www.patreon.com/posts/elliso...
Paul Krugman: “Should Europe envy the US for its tech sector? No. Aside from the fact that Europeans are living well, tech generates a big negative externality, because among other things it generates tech-bro billionaires, who are corrupting our politics.”
Another stiff price we pay for letting wealth concentrate:
“The billionaires who control our information systems do not want you informed about climate change. The last few years have seen...climate all but disappearing from television coverage.”
@emorwee.bsky.social heated.world/p/climate-co...
From the new book, The Good Society, by Kate Pickett, the co-author of the #inequality classic, The Spirit Level: “People say: ‘We don’t want a nanny state.’ Why wouldn’t we? A nanny looks after you and nurtures you. Bring on nanny!”
@profkepickett.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
Behind every unconscionably rich American, a tax-avoiding corporation: Alphabet (Sergey Brin), Meta (Mark Zuckerberg), and Amazon (Jeff Bezos) rank as our nation’s three biggest federal tax avoiders. @itep.org #inequality itep.org/corporate-ta...