Bernie Sanders’ billionaire tax would soak about 900 people to fund $3,000 checks for the middle class

Imagine a small concert venue, hosting 900 people, give or take. That’s about the number of passengers and crew on a small cruise ship, or of students attending the average U.S. public high school. A group that size collectively holds more wealth than the bottom half of the country combined, because that’s roughly how many billionaires live in the U.S. But a new bill is asking the people in that hypothetical cruise ship, concert venue, or high school to chip in, and to bankroll multi-thousand-dollar checks for millions of middle-class Americans.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna introduced the “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act” on Monday, a proposed 5% annual wealth tax on individuals with a net worth of $1 billion or more. Sanders estimates a total of 938 billionaires live in the U.S. and hold a collective $8.2 trillion.

That $8.2 trillion won’t only go into the government’s coffers. The proposed bill has some of that revenue going back into your pockets. In its first year, tax revenue would go toward a one-time $3,000 check for every person living in a lower- or middle-income household, or those earning $150,000 or less.

While the legislation faces steep odds given Republican control of the House and Senate, the bill follows a trend of proposals aimed at redistributing billionaire wealth. A major labor union introduced a California billionaire tax ballot initiative of similar stature—a 5% tax on those with a net worth of $1 billion or more in the state—though framed as a one-time tax rather than a recurring one. That bill has ignited an exodus from the state, with Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page among those who have announced their departures. The Biden administration in 2023 introduced a similar bill—a 20% minimum income tax for households with a net worth of $100 million or more—though with little success.

Sanders envisions this bill would be different. The revenue from the following years would be directed toward the “most pressing crises facing working families,” according to Sanders in a press release introducing the bill, estimated to generate $4.4 trillion within its first decade. Sanders and Khanna said the money would reverse $1.1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act; establish a minimum $60,000 salary for public school teachers; and cap parent childcare payments at 7% of household income.

“At a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, this legislation demands that the billionaire class in America finally pay their fair share of taxes so that we can create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%,” Sanders said in a press release.

Billionaires have increasingly caught the ire of disgruntled Americans, many of whom view the ultrawealthy as a threat to the country, according to a November 2025 Harris Poll. Even though 60% of Americans say they want to become a billionaire, 53% say billionaires are a threat to democracy, up seven points from when the same question was posed a year prior.

Doing the math on the tax

Sanders’ press release cites an analysis from Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Their report reveals the long-term impact of a 5% wealth tax on America’s 10 richest people, applying the 5% tax to their wealth for every year they’ve been ranked a billionaire. The math shows the wealth of billionaires would essentially halve every year.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the country’s richest person at this moment, would have seen his fortune fall from about $745 billion to $363 billion if a 5% tax had been applied to his wealth every year since he became a billionaire in 2012. Google cofounder Larry Page’s wealth would have declined from $258 billion to $83 billion if the same tax had been applied each year since he reached billionaire status in 2004.

“Democracies become oligarchies when wealth becomes too concentrated,” the researchers wrote. “The U.S. has now reached an unprecedented level of top wealth concentration.”

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