[jdhwosnhw]

I’ve heard this statistic before and it always strikes me as basically a non-sequitor. You’re writing down two percentages as if they are meaningful with respect to one another, but they arent.

If we as a society agree that some sort of progressive tax system is good (based on the fact that the mere act of survival comes with fixed costs, that naturally impact low-wealth holders over high-wealth holders) then we presumably expect higher wealth people to shoulder a larger burden of the cost of maintaining society, relative to that wealth.

The top 1% hold >30% of all wealth in the US, which, by the logic I described above, makes your 40% figure sound not just not exorbitant, but possibly too low.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...