Recap:

Barack Obama once declared economic inequality - that is, the large disparities in income and wealth between the rich and the rest - to be “the defining challenge of our time”. In a similar vein, Bernie Sanders called inequality “the great moral issue of our time”. Such sentiments are widespread on the left.  Yet the issue of inequality in the U.S. doesn’t seem that big of a deal for lot of other Americans. According to recent polls, just half of us consider economic inequality a “very big problem” in the U.S. (YouGov and Pew). This doesn’t mean Americans of the non-left are a cold-hearted bunch. Most want a country with less poverty, greater social mobility and equal opportunity for all. But for many, the very idea of extreme inequality elicits little more than a shrug

As with the general public, so with economists: a good number consider inequality more a consequence than a cause of dysfunction in American society and not a huge problem in itself.  But the arguments of economists seem to have little impact on public opinion (go figure!). And for many on the other side of the issue the problem of economic inequality goes way beyond its economic effects anyway. For them, the level of inequality in the U.S. also violates basic principles of fairness and leads to severe disparities in political power and wellbeing.

Does it?

I’m not going to attempt an answer to that question. Instead, I’m exploring pathways from the question to possible answers. Ever tiptoeing towards the light, carefully, with occasional missteps to be expected.

The last post in this series looked at various considerations that influence judgments of fairness, eg, need, merit, etc. This time I’m going to tackle political power, specifically whether the super-rich have too much of it, or not. For the time being, I won’t try to answer “what is too much and why is it too much?”. Instead, I present some evidence that billionaires don’t have much political sway in the states of California and New York, both with extreme levels of wealth inequality. Check it out:

Of course, I’m assuming the super-rich would prefer lower taxers, fewer regulations, weaker unions, more Republicans, and business-friendly policies in their states. And if they don’t get these things, then their political power is limited. Is it still too much? As I’ve said, that’s a topic for another post.

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Links:

Number of Billionaires in each State: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-states-with-the-most-u-s-billionaires-in-2025/

Wealth Inequality by State 2026 (Gini):  https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-state

Top Marginal State Individual Income Taxes, as of January 2025: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-income-tax-rates/

The Most Regulated States in the US:  https://www.mercatus.org/regsnapshots24 https://www.mercatus.org/regsnapshots24/california

Right-to-Work States: https://jobmarketmonitor.com/2024/02/14/anti-union-right-to-work-laws-they-damage-state-economies/

Single-Party States: https://ballotpedia.org/State_government_trifectas

America’s Top States for Business:  https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/09/americas-top-states-for-business-full-rankings.html