For years, progressives have longed to supplement progressive income taxes with wealth taxes that reach the vast inherited, invested, or even hidden assets that elude other revenue-raising measures. Perhaps the most high-profile wealth-tax measure yet will be on the 2026 general-election ballot in California. Prop 40 is sponsored by the state’s huge health-care-workers union; it is explained simply by CalMatters:

Proposition 40 would require the estimated 200 Californians whose net worth exceeded $1 billion at the start of this year to pay a one-time 5% tax. Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the group sponsoring the measure, projects that it would raise roughly $100 billion over five years. That money would be earmarked primarily for healthcare, with some reserved for food assistance and education.

Proposition 40 would require the estimated 200 Californians whose net worth exceeded $1 billion at the start of this year to pay a one-time 5% tax. Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the group sponsoring the measure, projects that it would raise roughly $100 billion over five years. That money would be earmarked primarily for healthcare, with some reserved for food assistance and education.

The original idea was to raise this money to make up for funding reductions in Medicaid and other federal-state health care emanating from Donald Trump’s Republican Congress in Washington, mostly via the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act.........

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