May 22, 2026
While sitting for an interview inside of his own Blue Origin rocket factory, Jeff Bezos — whose net worth of roughly $275 billion ranks him the world’s fourth richest person — argued that raising his taxes won’t necessarily help the American middle class.
“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” the Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder told CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin during the Wednesday interview. This was after Sorkin earlier brought up teachers unions in New York.
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Instead, Bezos characterized the country’s growing inequality gap, in which the richest 10% of Americans control almost 70% of the wealth, as “a tale of two economies” in which some thrive and others struggle.
But the blame, he said, falls on politicians “using this age old technique of picking a villain” — for example, billionaires — “and pointing fingers.”
Bezos also decried government bureaucracy blocking housing construction and driving up rents. At the same time, he did advocate for eliminating income taxes on lower income earners, noting, “A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year pays more than $12,000 a year in taxes. Does that really make sense?”
As far as raising taxes on billionaires like himself, however, he stopped at calling the idea a “perfectly valid policy debate.” He also noted, “We already have the most progressive tax system in the world.”
Non-billionaires see the issue a bit differently. One January 2026 poll found that 62% of Americans don’t think billionaires pay enough taxes, while 2025 surveys showed majority support for raising taxes on households making more than $400,000 and changing the tax code itself to do it.
Do billionaires actually pay their fair share of taxes?
Bezos touted America’s progressive tax system in which higher earners pay more income tax. And he’s not wrong.
In April, The Tax Foundation, using the most recent available income tax data, found that earners in the top 1% “paid a 26.3% average rate” compared to “the bottom half of taxpayers” paying 3.7% on average.
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The key word here, though, is “income.”
The Brookings Institute noted that “wages face heavier taxation than capital income.” They explained that because those in the top 1% earn most of their money through investments and businesses rather than wages, like middle- and lower-income households do, the highest-income households often pay lower taxes.
A ProPublica investigation pointed to Bezos himself as an example. After reviewing IRS documents in 2021, they found that between 2006 and 2018, “Bezos’ wealth increased by $127 billion” but that “he reported a total of $6.5 billion in income.” As such, Bezos’ $1.4 billion income tax payments amounted to a “1.1% true tax rate on the rise in his fortune.”
But Bezos isn’t alone. Another study by professors at Yale Law School and the University of Michigan Law School spotlighted billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison — whose assets include a private Hawaiian island he bought for $300 million. They said he “can pay little in taxes” because he “borrows against his billions of dollars in assets — which does not require paying any income tax.”
In fact, despite the progressive U.S. tax system, a 2021 study by White House economists reported that “the 400 wealthiest U.S. families paid an average income tax rate of just 8.2 percent from 2010 to 2018.”
And the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) warned that the wealth gap is poised to widen further. They say that, thanks to the Trump Administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, “by 2035, the top 1% will have received over $1 trillion in tax cuts” while middle- and lower-income families endure “massive cuts” to programs such as Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and SNAP.
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What could a billionaire tax hike pay for?
In January, Oxfam reported that “the collective wealth of billionaires last year surged by $2.5 trillion” globally, with American billionaires seeing “the sharpest growth in their fortunes.” They also said that that $2.5 trillion surge could “eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.”
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In the U.S., several politicians have called for increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans in recent years. For example, the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act put forward by a coalition led by Senator Elizabeth Warren in March aims to tax wealth — not income — above $50 million to the tune of $6.2 trillion in revenue over the next decade.
Similarly, a second proposed bill would hit billionaires with a 5% annual wealth tax, which University of California, Berkeley economics professors said would “raise approximately $4.4 trillion over a decade and close the gap between wealth growth for billionaires and income growth for the average American family.”
If accurate, those estimates work out to roughly $440 billion to $620 billion annually. To put that into context, a 2020 study found that fully funding a Medicare for All single payer healthcare system would require an annual increase in budgeting of $773 billion.
And that’s for complete funding — partial funding, at least, is certainly possible. Plus, add to that the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that, by 2030, a Medicare for All plan would also save the U.S. health care system $650 billion annually.
Other research suggests that child poverty — which costs the U.S. up to a trillion dollars annually — could be largely eliminated for $180 billion a year. And estimates from the House Budget Committee say that, for $191 billion annually, the U.S. could institute a “universal child care entitlement” for children aged 0 to 4, covering preschool costs and capping child care expenses for low-income families.
Meanwhile, a four-week universal paid family leave program could run less than $2 billion annually, while generating “long-term net social benefits” worth up to $55 billion. And a 2023 proposal for nationwide tuition-free community college came in with a price tag of $90 billion over the course of a decade.
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Mike Crisolago is a Sr. Staff Reporter at Moneywise with nearly 20 years of experience working as a journalist, editor, content strategist and podcast host. He specializes in personal finance writing related to the 50-plus demographic and retirement, as well as politics and lifestyle content.
