Tax Day is a reminder of America’s unequal tax system. But we can fix it | Zohran Mamdani, Gabriel Zucman and Joseph Stiglitz

Tax day is a reminder of America’s unequal tax system. But we can fix it Joseph Stiglitz , Gabriel Zucman and Zohran Mamdani There is no justification for a regressive system in which the super-rich contribute less than the rest of us T oday, we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. New York City’s average household income is $131,000 . Without extreme inequality, residents could live reasonably well. Instead, a few people at the top of the income ladder capture enormous wealth, while millions of others struggle just to get by. Some simply can’t make it. For them, New York has become fundamentally unaffordable. This outsized level of inequality has enormous economic, political and social consequences. It undermines social and political cohesion, erodes trust in institutions and leads people to conclude, correctly, that the system is rigged. Nearly one-fifth of America’s super-rich live in New York, the highest concentration of wealth in any state . But inequality is not just a New York problem or even an American problem – though the United States is more unequal than almost every other advanced economy. It is a global crisis. The global inequality report, commissioned during South Africa’s G20 presidency, found that between 2000 and 2024, the richest 1% captured 41% of all new wealth, while the bottom half of humanity got just 1%. This trajectory is unsustainable. The rise of extreme wealth is one of the clearest signs of this imbalance. In 1987, billionaires held wealth equal to 3% of global GDP. Today this tiny elite, just 0.0001% of the world population, owns the equivalent of 16% of world GDP in wealth. As wealth concentrates, so does power – the power to influence elections, shape policy, tilt markets and define the terms of public debate. One of the main drivers of this trend is our collective failure to effectively tax the super-rich. Until recently, the scale of the problem was difficult to measure. Public data does not track tax contribu...