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"Next Year's News This Week" Handicapping The WEALTH TAX Quagmire By Berit Anderson _______ Why Read: Ahead of the midterm elections, conversations about US wealth taxes - in all their varied forms - have become politically incendiary, rife with strong opinions but light on evidence. This week's Global Report looks to change that, combining analysis of domestic migration within and between states with historic responses of capital and investment to such policies across the US; and explaining how the states championing these policies - and their economies - are likely to be affected. _______ No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered - not gambling in stocks but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. - Theodore Roosevelt, "The New Nationalism" speech, 1910 There are taxes that will slow down growth, like taxes on capital formation or labor, and there are taxes that will not affect growth, like taxes on, you know, well-to-do people like me. And I remind people, the world, when you slow down the economy, you are hurting the disadvantaged more than anybody else. - Jamie Dimon, Chair & CEO, JPMorgan Chase,
The 2026 midterms are set to be a banner election for US wealth-tax initiatives in politically progressive tech states. For example:
Like conversations about police reform and Palestine, the topic of wealth taxation has become incendiary, dividing Americans sharply along economic and political lines.
Against Wealth Taxes: The Emotional Response Among the very wealthy (or those who expect to become so), there is often a feeling of being wronged or targeted for having been successful. After creating hundreds or even thousands of jobs in a community, some high-net-worth achievers feel they are being forced out by way of taxes they feel they can't afford or don't want to pay. They don't want to move, but they believe there is no choice. Given their significant economic and political sway within their communities, they also tend to be very vocal about their options.
Against Wealth Taxes: The Rational Response Common beliefs of those opposing wealth taxes include:
For Wealth Taxes: The Emotional Response By contrast, those on the lower end of the inequality spectrum are tired of how the wealth that successful entrepreneurs have brought to their community has warped affordability. Some work multiple jobs, and yet, with skyrocketing property costs, struggle to pay rent. They can't afford their healthcare. The public education of their children is declining. The small businesses in these economies struggle with rising rents, the cost of goods, and the increasing toll of paying their employees a living wage. Many are angry that all of this is occurring in the same reality in which the top 1.5% of global earners now own 48.4% of the world's wealth and believe that billionaires or the ultra-wealthy are deliberately undermining public infrastructure to augment their wealth.
For Wealth Taxes: The Rational Response Common beliefs of those in support of wealth taxes include:
I would encourage SNS members to avoid falling concretely to either side of this conversation - both of which oversimplify the likely outcomes of these types of initiatives. Like many similar national debates of this tenor, I believe this one has been weaponized by foreign and local actors to further political polarity, foment anger, and pump ratings. Don't become a cog in the outrage machine. Whether or not this election cycle's slate of wealth taxes passes, the patterns driving their popularity - inequality and inflation - seem to be accelerating, so we can expect them to stick around. As such, it's important that we understand their real, demonstrated impacts. The reality, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle.
Let's focus on what we do know, the science that demonstrates outcomes of these types of policies, and where both sides of the debate would likely find agreement:
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