There are an estimated 938 billionaires in the United States. To put that into context, that’s about two full Boeing 747s (each one holds 416 passengers). Or, that’s about half of the 1,763 seats in the Broadway Theatre, where you can now catch The Great Gatsby. It’s also the average size of the U.S. college graduating class, and just 1.1% of the 82,500 seats at MetLife Stadium.
Regardless of how you view that 938 number, there’s one overall resounding agreement people have: Most voters want billionaires to pay their fair share. With two separate billionaire tax proposals now gaining traction (one nationwide and one in California specifically), a new poll from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies quantifies just how much the average American thinks the rich should pay up.
The survey, released this month in partnership with the Los Angeles Times, found that 52% of California’s registered voters support a proposed one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires, while 33% oppose it.
Responses fell along ideological lines. Seventy-two percent of Democrats back the tax, and so does 51% of no-party-preference voters. But more than seven in 10 Republicans and strongly conservative voters oppose it.
California’s ballot initiative
The California Billionaire Tax Act didn’t come from a politician but from a union. SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, representing 120,000 health care workers, filed the ballot initiative in October 2025 with a specific crisis in mind: federal Medicaid cuts threatening to strip health care from more than 3 million working-class Californians.
To design the tax, the union tapped UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, who calculated that American billionaires currently pay just 1.3% of their wealth in taxes, down from 3.1% under President Ronald Reagan.
The bill would impose a one-time, 5% levy on the worldwide net worth of any individual worth more than $1 billion who was a California resident as of Jan. 1, 2026, paid in annual installments of 1% over five years. The Jan. 1 cutoff was designed to prevent the exodus that critics predicted and that at least six billionaires—including Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin—had attempted before the deadline passed.
The revenue is projected to be at $100 billion over five years and would flow 90% into health care, with the remaining 10% into education and food assistance. The measure still needs nearly 875,000 valid signatures by June 24 to reach the November ballot.
Bernie’s federal tax on billionaires
There’s a separate measure to initiate a similar 5% tax on billionaires nationwide. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) have proposed the “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act,” which would impose a 5% annual federal wealth tax on individuals worth $1 billion or more.
In its first year, the revenue would fund one-time $3,000 checks for households earning under $150,000, covering roughly three-quarters of the country. And like the California tax, the bill would address the $1.1 trillion in Medicaid and ACA cuts, in addition to capping childcare costs at 7% of household income, and establishing a $60,000 minimum salary for public school teachers.
The richest man alive, Elon Musk, has countered that taxing every billionaire at 100% barely dents the $39 trillion national debt. But the billionaire tax isn’t trying to fix the debt—it’s an attempt to address health care cuts.
A separate measure for a $30-an-hour minimum wage
The billionaire tax poll landed in the middle of something already moving: a $30-an-hour minimum wage campaign. It’s co-led by One Fair Wage, the national advocacy group whose president, Saru Jayaraman, helped convene 140 labor and community leaders in Los Angeles last June to declare a new era for the wage movement.
“We all agreed that the fight for $15 is long gone,” Jayaraman told Fortune. “It’s time for a new kind of frame.”
What emerged was the concept of a living wage for all, pegged to what the MIT Living Wage Calculator says it actually costs to live, with no carve-outs for tipped workers.
Since then, $30-wage bills have been introduced in New York City, Hawaii, and Los Angeles. Bills for $25 per hour are advancing in D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, and federally. Twenty states remain stuck at the federal floor of $7.25, unchanged since 2009.
Two sides of the same coin
The billionaire tax and the $30-wage campaigns share more than timing: They share a target.
“We see these two things in California go hand in hand,” Jayaraman said. “There are two parts to the same plan. Billionaires should pay tax like everybody else to help contribute to society, and they should pay their employees, whose labor they profit from, enough to survive.”
She added: “Right now, billionaires are paying nothing. They should pay their fair share.
“Minimum wage is by far the most popular issue out there right now,” Jayaraman said. “But the billionaires tax is a close second.”
