FEBRUARY 2026 – London-based WSJ reporter Carol Ryan, in a Feb. 18 report, zeroed in on the US economy’s dependence on tax revenues from billionaires and the super-rich, and its implications. It’s a short, straightforward piece accompanied by a remarkable graphic illustrating how the bottom 50% of the US population pays almost none of the nation’s taxes – largely because their share of the nation’s wealth keeps declining. The bottom 50 percent of the US population held $4.25 trillion of the nation’s $170 trillion of wealth, while the top 0.01 percent controlled more than $24 trillion, as of mid 2025.
The risk is that the U.S. economy becomes increasingly dependent on a narrow group of very rich households, whose spending is tied to the performance of the stock market. This could mean the entire economy pays a steep price in the next market correction.
https://www.wsj.com/finance/billionaires-low-taxes-are-becoming-a-problem-for-the-economy-27a560ca