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inequality
To Crush Global Inequality and Secure Livable Future, Scholars Call for 90% Tax on Mega-Rich
"The current international order is plutocratic," said French economist Thomas Piketty. "It is essential to move away from this plutocratic system to a new democratic order."
Jun 04, 2026
A sprawling report released Thursday argues that averting the "bleak techno-authoritarian futures now being sold to us" and laying the groundwork for a just, livable future requires restructuring the world's economic order to widely redistribute wealth that has been hoarded at the very top for decades.
The report, compiled by hundreds of researchers from around the world and published by the World Inequality Lab (WIL), is billed as the first comprehensive attempt to lay out a plan to "reconcile planetary habitability and high well-being for all." Achieving that aim will be impossible, the authors argue, "without a drastic reduction in inequality of income, wealth, and power."
"The current international order is plutocratic," said French economist Thomas Piketty, a renowned expert on inequality and co-director of WIL. "It is essential to move away from this plutocratic system to a new democratic order."
The report outlines a number of proposals that would redress staggering levels of wealth and income inequality. Currently, the top 10% of the global population brings in more income than the remaining 90% combined. Wealth inequality is even more extreme, with the top 10% controlling 75% of global wealth, compared to 2% controlled by the poorest half of humanity.
Specifically, the authors call for a new, progressive global income tax that would peak at 90% for those who earn 5,000 times the average adult disposable income. They also propose taxing the wealth of millionaires and billionaires at a rate up to 20%.
Revenue from the new taxes would flow into a Global Justice Fund, which would distribute dividends to countries to help boost spending on climate, education, and healthcare. The fund would also invest in a World Sovereign Fund, whose returns on "sustainable assets" would be used to finance country dividends.
"The result is not a transfer from many to few but a gain for almost everyone," Piketty and other report contributors wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian. "Close to 90% of the world’s population would double their income between 2026 and 2100, and once leisure and a habitable planet are counted, more than 99% come out ahead."
"Technical impossibility is not what is standing in the way, but rather the absence of a shared vision of social progress, at once concrete and radical."
Redressing inequality would not be sufficient to secure a livable future, the report authors emphasize, given that continued fossil fuel use and expansion are pushing the world in the direction of climate catastrophe. What's required to prevent planetary disaster is a "fundamental transformation of energy systems," the report argues.
"This means electrifying energy demand wherever feasible (such as transitioning vehicle fleets) and switching to low-carbon fuels (for example, in steel and cement production)," the report states. "Crucially, electricity generation itself must be decarbonized, moving away from fossil fuels toward renewables like hydropower, solar, and wind."
The report also envisions a move away from overconsumption toward what the authors call a future of "sufficiency," which would entail shorter work hours for the global labor force, changes to land use, and other reforms.
Such ambitious goals will not become reality, the report stresses, without "a powerful citizen movement and a dense network of broad-based organizations (including labor unions, political parties, civic platforms, and other collective initiatives) which are sufficiently well-organized and effective at promoting broad institutional and policy change."
"A habitable, equal, and prosperous 21st Century is materially possible," the authors declare. "Technical impossibility is not what is standing in the way, but rather the absence of a shared vision of social progress, at once concrete and radical. What it will take instead is political choice, and the hard work of coalition-building behind it."
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The Democratic Party Has a History Problem
Party leadership needs to study and learn from what the Wall Street wing has cost in terms of lost elections and the increasing tilt of the playing field.
May 28, 2026
In his stumbling explanation of the muddled autopsy report on the 2024 election debacle, Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin uttered two pieces of wisdom that regrettably, neither he nor the party has heeded: “The Democratic brand is in trouble and needs repair,” and “I agree with folks who have said we have to learn from the past to win the future.” Had they followed that advice, they would have seen how history tells a neglected and important story.
It begins when Bill Clinton was handed the keys to the White House by a group of largely Southern officials who formed the New Democrats with the mission of putting a Southern, pro-business candidate in the White House. With its pointed references to Reagan speeches and policies, Clinton’s Second Inaugural signaled a devil’s bargain that ended a century of Democratic Party policies.
In 1896, William Jennings Bryan had articulated the level playing field principles that served as the Democrats’ North Star for much of the last century: “There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.” In the term following his inaugural rejection of those principles, Clinton repealed one of the crown jewels of the New Deal, the Glass-Steagall Act regulating banks, and handed social media the gift of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, exempting them from the rules governing print and broadcasting.
In the years since Bill Clinton left the White House for a comfortable retirement, the New Democrats asserted control of the party, courting big donors with the pro-Wall Street policies resembling those of his second term. Their strategy uncannily mirrored that of Donald Trump’s Republicans by offering positions on social issues that appeased elements of the base while supporting economic policies benefiting corporate America. In their fight for the soul of the party, the New Democrats pulled no punches, blocking Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016 and primarying 2026 opponents with the zeal of Donald Trump.
One lesson history teaches us is that if inequalities are allowed to fester, things can get very ugly.
Their biggest failure may be that in abandoning the level playing field principle, the New Democrats offered no substitute, save triangulation. Today most of us would stumble over trying to define the Democratic Party in one sentence, but one can easily do that for the Republicans—less taxes, less government. With the midterms six months away, this lack of a unified message already has the faithful worried.
The historical data missing from the autopsy and Martin’s explanations tells the story of what the ascension of the Wall Street Democrats has cost their party and the country. Since 2000, the Democrats have controlled the House only 4 out of 15 terms and the Senate only 6 out of 15. For only four years have Democrats held a majority of state governerships. Democratic presidential victories were anomalies. Barack Obama benefited from a record turnout of BIPOC voters. Joe Biden won because of the mishandling of Covid-19. Even allowing for gerrymandering and voter suppression, it appears clear that the Democratic Party has been in decline for some time.
Given the pro-Wall Street leanings of both parties, we should not be surprised that we have essentially been governed by a minority. Since 2000, the winning presidential candidate has only averaged 30.18% of the voting-eligible population. Today, only 27% of voters identify with either party, while 45% identify as independents. That is the lowest total ever for Democrats.
The numbers in various data and reports tell how the tilt of the playing field continues to widen. Although real total wealth has tripled since 1989, the share of the top 10% has increased from 63% to 72%, but the bottom 50% saw their share decline from 4% to 2%. Meanwhile, labor’s share of production has declined ominously. According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, it fell from 64% in 2001 to 56% in 2023. During most of the 1950s and 60s it hovered around 60%.
Business concentration recalls the trusts that sparked such widespread discontent during the late 19th century. The best figures come from a study by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Small Business that was mothballed after its release in December 2023—and goes unmentioned in the autopsy. Bristling with footnotes, the eye-opening Report on Competition in the Small Business Economy cites a Boston Federal Reserve study that shows the economy is 50% more concentrated today than in 2005. It goes on to state, “The dramatic increase in income and wealth inequality seen over the past four decades in the US can also be largely attributed to higher levels of concentration across industries.” Sounding like an outraged 1890 Farmers’ Alliance tract, the study paints a grim picture of today’s farmers: “From the seeds they plant, to the fertilizer in the soil to the machinery that allows them to make it all happen at scale, the price they pay at every step is at the whim of a handful of companies.”
Faced with similar conditions during the Gilded Age, discontented workers and farmers organized to press for the Sherman, Interstate Commerce, and Safety Appliance Acts; laid the groundwork for the 16th, 17th, and 19th amendments; initiated bureaus of labor statistics and factory inspections; and enhanced access to higher education. Because they feared both parties were the tools of tycoons, the discontented also formed new parties, of which the Greenbackers and Populists are the most notable. Most of all, in a flurry of civic engagement, they founded groups like the Grange, Knights of Labor, Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, and Farmers’ Alliance.
Whether today’s discontent will have a similar impact remains an open question. A good part of the answer will depend on whether people like Ken Martin continue to support the Wall Street wing of the party or realize what that support has cost in terms of lost elections and the increasing tilt of the playing field. What is clear is that the drastically tilted playing field has become extremely volatile. One lesson history teaches us is that if inequalities are allowed to fester, things can get very ugly. During the discontent of the Gilded Age, lynchings averaged 150 per year between 1881 and 1900, or one every 2.4 days. Another 1,400 people perished in riots, in the most violent three decades in our history. All of us can see and fear the growling, anvil-shaped clouds that threaten to darken our lives, as they did over a century ago.
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It's Time for Ultra-Wealthy Private Jet Owners to Pay Their Fair Share
The Stop Subsidizing Private Jets Act of 2026 would end loopholes allowing billionaires to deduct private planes as business expenses.
May 27, 2026
One of the great injustices of our current tax system is that working people often end up subsidizing the luxury consumption of the billionaire class.
One example of this phenomena can be found in the world of private jets, one of the most ecologically indefensible forms of transformation. The private jet lobby has worked for years to secure tax breaks for aircraft purchases and fuel—and shift their costs on to taxpayers and the commercial flying public.
The lobby scored a big win when a 100% bonus depreciation for business assets including private planes was included in the 2017 Trump tax cut. That provision was renewed in 2025’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
With that provision in place, if a billionaire buys a $170 million luxury jet, they can deduct the entire purchase as a business expense in the year they buy it, greatly reducing their tax bill. Most business expenses are deducted to reflect their depreciation over multiple years. A purchase of a truck or vehicle, for example, is typically depreciated over five years.
Every day commercial flyers are taxed more heavily for their tickets compared to private jet travelers who are only taxed on their jet fuel.
Current tax loopholes give the ultra wealthy—including both private citizens and businesses—millions in tax write-offs for their luxurious travel, including the costs of planes themselves and related expenditures like private pilots and fuel.
The Private Jet Accountability Project (PJAP) at the Institute for Policy Studies has been working with members of Congress to rollback these subsidies. US Reps. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.), Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Mich.), and Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) recently introduced the Stop Subsidizing Private Jets Act of 2026.
“Right now, the tax code allows those buying private jets worth tens of millions of dollars to receive enormous write-offs, while middle-class families do not get deductions for basics like gas or groceries. That is wrong,” Vindman said in a statement. “My bill is a commonsense fix that ends these unfair giveaways while protecting farmers, small businesses, and emergency responders who depend on aviation for real business and community needs.”
Today, private jets, even those valued at $100 million or more, are not considered a luxury vehicle, which means the full value can be a business expense write-off. Expenses such as fuel, pilots, decor, and in-flight services are also a write-off. It is estimated that the owner of a $100 million jet can get a $21 million tax benefit.
This legislation will end these loopholes while protecting “exemptions for aircraft, primarily used to transport property, as well as planes used for agriculture, firefighting, emergency medical services, flight instruction, sky diving operations, and certain commercial flights available to the public” as described in the bill.
These are funds we cannot afford to lose. An Institute for Policy Studies report found that private air travel is a significant portion of air traffic, with a ratio of 1 private jet per 6 commercial planes. Despite this, private jet travel only contributes 2% of the taxes that go to fund the Federal Aviation Administration. At the same time, people flying commercial pay a 7.5% federal excise tax on tickets to fund the FAA’s Airport and Airway Trust Fund. Every day commercial flyers are taxed more heavily for their tickets compared with private jet travelers who are only taxed on their jet fuel.
“It’s ridiculous and unfair that the ultra wealthy get million-dollar tax breaks for their private jets while working families are seeing their healthcare and food assistance cut,” said Rep. McDonald Rivet. “We need to get rid of this insane loophole, because if you can afford a private jet, you can afford to pay your fair share in taxes.”
“The fact that our tax dollars are still funding tax breaks for someone’s private jet is insane,” Rep. Landsman added. “We have to fix the tax code so the super wealthy stop getting special treatment, and our small businesses and farmers can actually get ahead.”
In the face of the jet fuel crisis, European lawmakers are exploring banning certain kinds of private jet operations. Here in the US, all we are asking is that private jets pay their fair share.
Luxury travel that isn’t taxed appropriately epitomizes the inequality that exists in the tax and travel systems. Why should everyday Americans foot the bill for the ultra-wealthy’s private air travel and the air travel infrastructure we all use?
The passage of the Stop Subsidizing Private Jets Act of 2026 is an important step in correcting the imbalance of wealth and power in our democracy.
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