The 5 & Dime Wealth Tax | Because Billionaire Wealth Is Driving Up The Cost Of Living

Mar 2, 2026 | Memo

Your voters are working harder than ever and still falling behind. That’s not an accident. Some 300,000 households — those worth more than $50 million — are collectively sitting on $40 trillion in wealth. That’s more than five times what the federal government spent last year. It’s more than the entire national debt. And it’s enough capital to reshape entire markets and buy political influence. Billionaire wealth is hurting your voters:

  • It’s raising their rent — private equity firms own at least 1.6 million housing units and use aggressive rent-maximizing tactics to squeeze tenants. In cities like Tampa, Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, and Charlotte, private equity landlords have driven sharp rent increases even as units sit deliberately vacant as investment vehicles.
  • It’s inflating their hospital bills and making their care worse — roughly 40% of emergency rooms are now owned by private equity. The playbook: load hospitals with debt, replace doctors with lower-cost staff, and bill aggressively. The result is care that costs patients 32% more and produces 25% more hospital-acquired complications. 
  • It’s pricing them out of childcare — private equity now controls an estimated 12% of the U.S. childcare market, concentrating ownership in chains that target higher-income communities and charge premium prices. Average childcare costs have jumped roughly 30% since 2020, with families spending about 27% of their income on care.
  • It’s raising their grocery bills — private equity has acquired major supermarket chains through leveraged buyouts, saddling them with debt paid off through higher prices. Beyond groceries, decades of consolidation have created near-monopolies in beef, pharmaceuticals, airlines, and more.
  • It’s inflating their energy bills — billionaire-owned AI data centers already consume more than 4% of all U.S. electricity, a share projected to hit 12% by 2028. They accounted for roughly 40% of U.S. electricity demand growth in 2025, helping push residential electricity prices up approximately 7% — more than double the overall inflation rate. 
  • It’s blocking the next generation of entrepreneurs — When billionaire-controlled conglomerates and private equity roll-ups dominate every sector from retail to healthcare to media, there’s less room for startups to compete. New business formation has declined in consolidation-heavy industries, and small business owners face suppliers, landlords, and lenders that are often controlled by the same concentrated wealth. The American Dream isn’t just about working hard. It’s about having a real shot. Extreme wealth is closing that door.

Meanwhile, billionaires pay lower effective tax rates than nurses and teachers, borrow against their assets to live tax-free, pass their fortunes to their heirs through loopholes, and park wealth in investment vehicles that are never taxed at all. 

THE SOLUTION: The 5 & Dime Wealth Tax

One nickel on every dollar over $50 million. One dime on every dollar over $250 million. That’s it. No complicated loopholes to close, no arcane tax law to explain. The 5 & Dime Wealth Tax is exactly what it sounds like: a 5% annual tax on wealth above $50 million, and 10% on wealth above $250 million.

Most middle-class families already pay an annual wealth tax; it’s called the property tax. They pay it every year on the most valuable thing they own. The 5 & Dime simply applies that same common-sense principle to the assets of the ultra-ultra-wealthy. Does this affect small businesses or family farms? No. The threshold is $50 million. This is exclusively a tax on the wealthiest households in America.

What does it raise? $6.8 trillion over ten years.

WHAT YOUR VOTERS GET

$6.8 trillion can fund a transformation in your voters’ lives. Here’s what that money could do:

  • $3.1 trillion to expand the Child Tax Credit to $6,000 per child per year
  • $1 trillion to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for working families
  • $700 billion for universal, affordable childcare for every child in America
  • $500 billion to expand Medicare to cover long-term care, hearing, and vision
  • $351 billion for universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old
  • $325 billion for universal paid family and medical leave
  • $185 billion to provide health insurance for every uninsured child in America
  • $96 billion to build a million new public housing units
  • $90 billion for tuition-free community college
  • $56 billion for free school lunch for every child

Extreme wealth grows so fast that even when a billionaire actively tries to give away her wealth, her net worth still increases. To chip away at the power and influence of the ultra-wealthy, billionaires shouldn’t just pay more, they should have less. According to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, this proposal would slow the emergence of new billionaires and reduce the total share of wealth controlled by billionaires. And voters support it: 62% of voters in Congressional Battleground States support this proposal. 84% of Democratic primary voters support it. 

FAQ: WHAT OPPONENTS WILL SAY (AND HOW TO RESPOND)

  • “The rich will just hide their money to avoid the tax.” Some evasion happens with every tax; that’s never a reason to abandon sound policy. The U.S. has significant tools to limit evasion, and defining “wealth” broadly enough to cover the investment vehicles the ultra-rich use to shelter assets closes the most obvious escape routes. We don’t let people off the hook for income taxes because some people cheat.
  • “Billionaires will just leave the country.” This argument doesn’t hold up against U.S. law. Unlike France or Sweden — the examples opponents usually cite — the U.S. taxes citizens based on citizenship, not residency. You can’t just move to a tax haven and escape. Renouncing citizenship triggers an exit tax that treats all your assets as sold at fair market value. There’s no easy escape hatch.
  • “It’s unconstitutional.” Multiple prominent legal scholars have made a strong case that a well-structured wealth tax is constitutional. And even if challenged, the proposal can be structured with a fallback provision that ensures it remains in effect, apportioned by state, even if a court strikes down one version. More broadly: conservatives never let constitutional uncertainty stop them from pursuing their policy goals. Progressives shouldn’t either.
  • “It will hurt the economy.” The opposite is true. Economists have found that wealth taxation actually increases economic efficiency by shifting the tax burden toward unproductive wealth-holders and freeing up capital for more productive entrepreneurs. Addressing extreme inequality and reinvesting in public goods is a net positive for growth and for the everyday costs your voters are struggling with.
  • “Why punish success?” This isn’t about punishing success. It’s about recognizing what extreme, dynastic, market-distorting wealth actually is and what it does. When a billionaire’s capital is raising our cost of living and buying political influence to keep all of it legal, that’s not success to be celebrated. That’s a problem to be solved. The 5 & Dime doesn’t make billionaires poor. It makes them less powerful and returns some of that power to everyone else. The real threat to success and entrepreneurship is the consolidation of markets by dynastic wealth that leaves no room for the next generation of builders to compete.

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