It sounds reasonable to anyone who doesn't work with macro data to say that "a few billionaires" cannot have a measurable effect. There are approximately one m

It sounds reasonable to anyone who doesn't work with macro data to say that "a few billionaires" cannot have a measurable effect. There are approximately one million physicians earning an average income of about $300k. That accounts for approximately 7% of $3.8 trillion spent on healthcare. Another way to look at it. The total assets of individuals earning over $540k increased by over 30% from $27.58T to $36.23T from 2020q2 to 2021q2. That is, the net worth of just the 1% of highest earners in the country increased by an amount equivalent to 28 years of physicians' salaries in a single year. Political discourse on the distribution of wealth in the US does seem intent on convincing people who make a few hundred thousand dollars that they feel economic stress because they are propping up the truly destitute, and convincing the destitute that they feel economic stress because professionals are making $300k or $400k. Actual data relating to the percentage share of wealth in the United States[1] spanning 1989q3 to 2021q2 by income percentiles show that people in the 60th up to the 99th percentiles have hardly changed their percentage ownership of assets in the country, but everyone below the 60th percentile in income has lost ground, and that wealth ownership has been almost exclusively been acquired by those in the top percentile. 80-99th: 43.6 -> 43.6 60-80th: 16.7 -> 15.4 40-60th: 12.3 -> 7.2 20-40th: 7.4 -> 4.0 0-20th: 2.9 -> 2.7 99-100 : 17.2 -> 27.0 Note that these data begin in 1989, which was already the first year in the post-WWII period that the gini ratio exceeded 0.4 following economic policies intended to shift wealth away from lower earners (it is 0.458 in 2020, and was most equitable in 1968 at 0.348). (Table F-4 [2]) [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:127;series:Net%20worth;demographic:income;population:all;units:shares https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr... [2] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-inequality.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...