New York has 154 billionaires, whose total wealth amounts to $975.7 billion.

Ask AI · Why has the wealth growth of billionaires in New York far outpaced the salaries of ordinary workers?

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The wealth of the rich is expanding at an unprecedented rate, while ordinary workers are struggling with stagnant wages and rising living costs. This gap is especially pronounced in one of the states with the highest concentration of billionaires in the U.S.

The latest report from Oxfam America shows that New York State has 154 billionaires with a total wealth of up to $975.7 billion. As a financial and investment hub, New York State attracts many ultra-rich individuals, including Michael Bloomberg with a net worth of $109B and Stephen Schwarzman with $41.9 billion. Their net assets are astonishing and continue to grow. Over the past year, the wealth of billionaires in the state increased by 11.6%, three times the growth rate of private sector employees’ hourly wages in New York. Oxfam’s report points out that because the actual average hourly wage in New York’s private sector has essentially stagnated (and in 2025 is expected to be slightly below pre-pandemic levels), the gap between rich and poor has widened further.

Standing at the top of New York’s billionaire pyramid, the disparity between this elite group and ordinary citizens is even more stark. The report shows that over the past year, the combined wealth of the top ten billionaires in New York increased by $42.4 billion, with an average new wealth of about $4.2 billion per person—equivalent to about $2 million earned per hour. In contrast, the average hourly wage for private sector workers in the state is $39.62, meaning an ordinary employee would need to work 82,863 years to earn the same as the average annual income of the top ten billionaires last year.

However, the increasing economic polarization in New York is not an isolated case. Oxfam points out that this phenomenon is spreading across the United States.

“We see the same situation in New York as the national trend,” said Rebecca Riddell, senior policy manager for economic justice at Oxfam America, in an interview with Fortune magazine. “From many perspectives, our economic system is structurally unjust, with resources and benefits tilted toward the wealthiest, leaving ordinary workers at a disadvantage. Past policy choices on taxation, corporate power, and workers’ rights have led to economic benefits increasingly concentrating at the top.”

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Why has the wealth of U.S. billionaires skyrocketed

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Riddell highlights several key factors behind the surge in billionaire wealth.

According to Federal Reserve data, the wealthiest 0.1% of U.S. households hold about a quarter of all stocks in the country, allowing their wealth to expand by tens of billions of dollars. A report from Oxfam last year showed that from November 2024 to November 2025, the net worth of the top ten U.S. billionaires—mainly tech founders like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, who have gained huge investment returns—rose by $698 billion. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of income earners in the U.S. hold only 1.1% of stocks.

Riddell also states that billionaires benefit from policies that “exacerbate inequality,” enacted by the Trump administration.

In July last year, President Trump signed the “Big and Beautiful Act,” which aims to cut taxes for the top 0.1% of income earners nationwide. It is estimated that by 2027, this law will reduce taxes by $311k for ultra-rich individuals, while the poorest groups earning less than $15k annually will be forced to pay more taxes. Riddell explains that under this law, policy support for the wage-earning population in New York will be cut, and those earning millions of dollars annually will receive about $52k in “subsidies” this year.

To genuinely improve the situation of wage earners in New York, Riddell suggests policymakers raise taxes on the wealthiest to narrow the wealth gap and fund key public services. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has proposed increasing the city income tax rate by 2 percentage points for households earning over $1 million annually.

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Americans barely making ends meet and deeply dissatisfied with the wealth gap

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The number of billionaires in the U.S. far exceeds that of any other country, but ordinary workers have not benefited from the country’s economic success.

Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi told Fortune last year that the financial situation of low-income families is “precarious.” Rising living costs, slowed hiring to worrying levels, and increasing layoffs have made the problem so severe that it has even triggered a loneliness crisis—Americans are giving up social activities and delaying life plans to survive.

Zandi said in 2025, “Job opportunities will only become scarcer, and people’s situations will grow more difficult. You can hold on for a while, but you can’t do it forever. When a wave of layoffs hits, the low- and middle-income groups will be hit first—they have no way out. They are burdened with debt: car loans, student loans, and, if lucky, mortgages. Struggling to get by, they will soon fall into recession.”

Americans are not indifferent to the growing wealth gap; on the contrary, they hold critical views of extreme wealth. A recent survey by Pew Research Center shows that nearly one in five Americans believe becoming a billionaire is “immoral,” with Generation Z expressing the strongest opposition. A 2026 report by YouGov indicates that 52% of Americans see the wealth gap as a very serious problem, and 59% believe the government should intervene to narrow it. Additionally, 62% of the public think current tax rates on billionaires are severely or too low (46% and 16%, respectively). (Wealth China)

Translator: Zhong Huiyan - Wang Fang

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