By Amanda Matyas and Jane Slaughter

A slew of political education-related resolutions and amendments this year could get us overwhelmed with details. It would be a shame if members at convention got bogged down in, “Is it thirty minutes for education or 45? Are we picking topics today or in a few months?”

Instead, we’d like to step back and talk about one part of an overall vision for what a thriving DSA chapter could look like.

First, what’s the reason to have a DSA chapter at all? It’s not just to create a community of like-minded people, though that’s part of it. It’s to create an organization that acts in the world with power. We are part of a national organization that’s trying to do the hardest thing ever attempted: to break the back of capitalism at its very core. To do that we will need to convince millions, literally millions, of people to become political actors in ways they never have before.

Socialism won’t be achieved by such millions obediently following orders. It can be achieved only by millions of thinking people who’ve decided to take their lives into their own hands. They will need to know that they are socialists.

The party DSA is trying to build is one school for training up socialists and class fighters. Unions can be another such school, as can social movements like the movement to stop ICE. These organizations, formal or informal, are where people learn to make decisions democratically, to strategize, to understand their opponents’ weaknesses and how to win small victories on the way to larger ones.

We’ve been members of Detroit DSA’s Political Education Committee since its early days. The committee has always been open to any member, and has put on a wide variety of events: education at the monthly general meetings (a new focus of the last two years); stand-alone Socialist Night Schools such as on Detroit politics, lessons from the Chicago Teachers Union, and the Communist Manifesto; Red Squares — one-off forums on a variety of topics, including conversations with socialists in (or near) office from Detroit to Brazil, and the history of the Troubles in northern Ireland; skills training such as public speaking or organizing conversations; new-member education on the basics; reading groups ranging from Capital to queer feminism to fiction. The events have been a mixture of practical, such as Organizing 101, and bigger-picture. Both are needed to help nurture socialists who can think, debate, and act. Acting in the world is the end goal of it all.

HOW SHOULD DSA FUNCTION?

What’s the best way for a DSA chapter that wants to end capitalism to function? This is the ideal, which we can’t say we’ve achieved yet:

· High-trust, high-participation. We need monthly general meetings (GMs) that people come to because they have a stake in the outcome: They learn. They debate. They vote. They make decisions that matter for what we do in the world. A GM where members’ role is to passively listen to announcements and updates… doesn’t make them want to return. Nor does it move us forward in changing the world.

· Active committees that have the experience and confidence to try new things. Many members’ first experience with active participation and democratic decision-making begins at the GM. An active committee is another place where those skills are honed. Ideas, decisions, and projects flow from GM to committee to GM for decisions, developments, and debriefs. Members who are involved and engaged with a committee will necessarily feel more involved in the organization, and confident in themselves. This includes the confidence of their fellow members, in and outside of the committee — they don’t need constant monitoring.

· Long-distance runners. People who understand how capitalism works, how movements work (or have not worked in the past), are more likely to stay in the fight. The chapter welcomes everyone who joins because of a particular issue they’re fired up about, and we help them see how it’s connected to every other issue. Conversations about systemic forms of oppression, revisited over time with new and old members, inform our strategy in our campaigns, projects, and workplaces. It is through conversations about the absolute basics that we can start to recognize the systems we are fighting.

People who don’t really understand the system can get easily discouraged by setbacks or turned off by the inevitable disagreements among socialists. We must be strategic in order to make real systemic change, not just reforms. Members who inflate the potential of a particular goal can find themselves disappointed when it doesn’t meet their expectations; by understanding the system, we know that “tax the rich,” for example, is a necessary reform, but it will not end capitalism. Knowing that this is a long, monumental project gives us perspective. We see campaigns and projects as pieces of a much bigger picture. We have long-term vision and goals, and are not easily deflated by a defeat today or tomorrow. The defeats are a part of a larger experimentation. We learn, like socialists before us learned.

· Our campaigns are aimed at helping working class people to organize on their own behalf, not on looking for a charismatic savior. We know that a reform gifted from above is not half as valuable as a reform wrested by mass action. Our campaigns are designed for bottom-up participation and decision-making, not for marching orders.

· As Kwame Toure explained at our March GM, we are building organizers, not just mobilizers. We want ongoing, thriving organizations that people take responsibility for maintaining, not just one-off demonstrations or events (though those are important too). Toure said, “People instinctively love freedom… But you cannot win freedom on instinct. You can only win freedom on reason.” Capitalism creates a complicated, contradictory world. Socialists must be very intentional about learning and teaching the history and theory of our movement and class. This will not be done by anyone else, and it will not be done incidentally. We must make it ourselves.

HOW DOES DEMOCRACY HELP?

An undemocratic organization is a weaker organization. It doesn’t have the buy-in of its members; it has trouble turning people out for the priorities it has decided on, partly because members didn’t have much role in those decisions (even if they nominally voted for them). Socialists are in favor of democracy in their own organization because democracy leads to more unity in action.

This is why the proposed focus of our political education at the GMs is broad and foundational: what will help us understand the capitalist system around us, and what are the core debates in our organization? While we experiment with different learning styles, our focus is on bringing members together in conversation, to learn from each other. We do not believe that any one tendency or strain of socialist thought has all the answers for every situation. Instead, the power comes from all tendencies working together, debating and aligning on the best tactic or approach for each situation.

We’ve been misled by our civics textbooks and other forms of propaganda to think that democracy equals “you have a vote.” But in fact, democracy is much more than that. Citizens of Russia and Hungary have the right to vote, but those countries are in fact dictatorships. Political scientists call the U.S. a democracy, but as socialists we know who is actually running the country.

Democracy requires much more than receiving an email in the privacy of your home and clicking the box for ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Democracy means the members run this organization. Some hallmarks:

· DSA is “we,” not “they.”

· Issues are discussed openly. Decisions are made openly. Dissenting views are encouraged. The culture is mutual respect.

· Members can organize themselves, without waiting for assignments.

· Members, including longtime members, are constantly learning.

· It’s easy to be active and to move into leadership positions.

· Leaders help new members to develop and there are multiple avenues for doing so.

· Leaders trust members and members trust leaders.

Metro Detroit DSA is better on some of these markers than others. What we surely don’t need is to move in the direction of more passivity for members, less trust in committees, less tolerance of different views.

DSA since its revitalization of the last ten years has always prided itself on being a “big tent” where different views can co-exist democratically. We have rejected the idea that one set of ideas or one caucus should “win” and stamp out others.

If you agree that democracy means an engaged, confident membership and that a democratic DSA is stronger to act in the world, we urge you to vote:

1. YES on R4–26 Political Education Committee Resolution, and NO on its amendment
2. YES on R16–26 General Membership Meetings Pol Ed Series on Debates in DSA, and NO on its amendment
3. YES on amendment A1-R8–26: Agitation, Deliberation, Education: A Radically Democratic General Meeting, and NO on its base (if unamended)

Jane Slaughter and Amanda Matyas are members of Detroit DSA’s Political Education Committee, the national Bread & Roses caucus, and the local Democracy Coalition, a new self-organized, cross-tendency formation.

A Democratic DSA Is Strong to Act in the World was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By: Justin Skytta

You’ve probably heard before that DSA is a member-funded and driven organization. However, if you’ve never worked “behind the scenes” on administrative projects, it’s easy to take for granted the sheer amount of unpaid labor that our dedicated volunteers put into running the organization.

Every Zoom meeting, sign-up form, resolution, general meeting, social and Dance Against Fascism, convention, membership vote, SC vote, appropriation, contract, and Douglass Debs dinner is planned and run by volunteer members.

None of this would happen without the many members who collectively devote dozens of hours every week to keep the chapter running. It is not an exaggeration to say that these administrative duties often feel like a second job, if not another full time job!

In this article, I’m going to outline why splitting the current secretary role on the steering committee into an administrative secretary and communications secretary role will not only make the workload more manageable, but position our chapter for sustainable growth and more effective day-to-day operations.

The Secretary Role as It Exists is Essentially a Full-Time Job

Per our chapter’s bylaws, the secretary is responsible for creating meeting agendas, keeping meetings during steering and general meetings, distributing these notes, maintaining all chapter records, and overseeing all external communications, including organizing the communications committee, chapter newspaper, graphic design and information technology.

That’s a lot of work for one person to handle for a 1,300 member organization! As a member of the steering committee and an officer myself, I’ve personally witnessed the demanding, time-intensive and wide-ranging duties of the chapter secretary role. It makes it very difficult for the individual to devote time to any other organizing tasks, makes it inaccessible to anyone but members able to devote 30+ hours a week, and risks burning out a chapter leader.

There are many roles within our growing organization that bear similar issues. My own position as Treasurer, for example, routinely requires 20+ hours a week on various duties, projects, and planning. I can’t recall a day I didn’t do DSA work. Those challenges, however, will hopefully see solutions with the further building out of our Finance Committee.

But when life gets busy or a member inevitably burns out or falls ill, agendas are published late, meaning members may come less prepared to discuss vital issues at general meetings, and notes aren’t distributed. This leads to confusion or miscommunication, and external communications like statements on current events may be delayed to the point where they are no longer relevant.

It’s just too much to ask any one given member to do, which is unhealthy for both the individual in the role and the chapter as a whole. Furthermore, it opens the individual up to criticism when realistically their duties have simply grown too broad and time-intensive for a single volunteer. We can do better.

Splitting the Role Creates a Manageable Workload

By splitting the role into two secretarial positions — administrative and communications — both roles become much more approachable and sustainable. Furthermore, it ensures both functions are much more likely to run smoothly as the workload becomes more manageable for the average member with a full-time job and other personal obligations.

The administrative secretary would handle publishing meeting agendas, keeping meeting minutes during steering and general meetings, distribution of minutes and agendas, maintaining all chapter records, and maintaining a register of the contact information and addresses of the steering committee.

On the other hand, the communications secretary would oversee all chapter communications and media — the communications committee, chapter newspaper, graphic design and tech working group. That includes all outward facing media and communications, including social media.

Building MD-DSA Into a Chapter Ready to Fight for the Long Haul

From winning a seat on Detroit City Council to growing the chapter to 1,300 members and counting, from joining striking workers on the picket line to socials to keep our members engaged, nothing in Metro Detroit DSA would operate very smoothly without the hard work of our secretary. But heaping an excessive workload for an entire year on a single volunteer is neither healthy nor sustainable.

By splitting the position into two distinctly segmented roles, we enable members to step up and sustainably run the vital administrative work our chapter requires to function for many years to come. It’s going to be a long fight to Build the Party, beat fascism and dismantle capitalism, so let’s plan accordingly by supporting our comrades and sharing the load for these critical tasks.

Building Admin for The Party was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By: Amanda Matyas

Committees in DSA allow members to focus their work on specific areas. Their primary goal is supporting the chapter as a whole, and their members and decisions are accountable to decisions made by the membership of the chapter. Our chapter’s Political Education Committee (Pol Ed) is “responsible for coordination of political education events for the chapter.” Education is a top priority of Detroit DSA, and Pol Ed takes that responsibility very seriously. The resolutions the committee brings to the 2026 convention are based on two years of dedication and experimentation on a particular project. Here’s some of that history in brief.

FOCUS & EXPERIMENTATION

Two years ago, members of the Pol Ed committee brought an amendment to their base resolution dedicating 30–45 minutes of every monthly General Membership meeting (GM) to political education. The reasoning was simple: As the most important space for our chapter, the GM deserved our attention. We would bring an array of socialist education topics over the course of the next year.

By presenting this as a separate amendment, Pol Ed hoped to spark an engaging debate to convention on the importance of education. However, the idea was so well received that only one member spoke against it (beginning with the caveat that their remarks were not really “against”). The amendment passed by an overwhelming majority (only 8 nays).

The committee developed and presented ten GM topics in as many months. The work was spread across the committee, with ten different leaders organizing the effort each month. We had a broad range of topics:

1. Four on chapter projects or campaigns
2. Four on current events or history
3. One socialism 101 topic
4. One national DSA project

Over the course of 2024 we also organized four Red Squares, multiple monthly reading groups, lectures, trainings, and movie nights. Each of these different venues provided a different context for our work, with varying strengths and weaknesses. We began to think about the best venue for different kinds of topics, and how different methods of presentation affect the way members engage with the information. The committee debriefed following each presentation or event, and through those conversations we also realized we needed more planning time for each topic.

At the 2025 convention, we reaffirmed our focus with a second resolution, which was included in the Consent Agenda. Soon after, the committee adopted a motion to focus half of our GM topics over the next year on Socialism 101, topics of perennial importance to the history and development of socialist organizing and our class politics:

1. Why We’re Socialists
2. Why the Working Class
3. Racial Capitalism
4. Socialist Feminism and the Patriarchy
5. Why a Socialist Organization

At the time, a huge influx of new members/seekers were joining our monthly meetings with a wide variety of backgrounds and political experience. Our intention was to help all members grow their confidence speaking to what socialism means and why it provides the necessary political framework for addressing the issues that millions face. With a syllabus of five topics, we left the alternate months open for current events or suggestions from members outside of the committee.

In addition to the Socialism 101 topics, we presented a panel of local Palestinian activists, a history of “sewer socialism,” and collaborated with our chapter’s Black & Brown Alliance (BBA) to bring a guest speaker on imperialism (unfortunately the speaker had to cancel due to illness, and a replacement discussion on ICE was cut from the agenda).

The commitment to a syllabus allowed us to spend more time developing each topic (preparations often began two months ahead), and to organize new and experienced members to the planning groups. That additional time also allowed us to work with members outside of the committee, focusing especially on collaborations with BBA leadership and our chapter’s Steering Committee (SC), who all expressed interest in the project.

WHAT COMES NEXT?

For the 2026 convention, the Political Education Committee developed three resolutions that fit together to form a comprehensive syllabus covering the basics of socialism, DSA’s strategy, and an overall vision for our GMs:

• R4–26 Political Education Committee Resolution, which now includes the five socialism 101 topics
• R16–26 General Membership Meetings Pol Ed Series on Debates in DSA, a proposal for a series of debates in the months alternating the 101 topics
• A1-R8–26: Agitation, Deliberation, Education: A Radically Democratic General Meeting, (formerly a resolution — through reasons outside of our control this became an amendment) an overall vision for how we spend our time at each GM, including a process for responding to current events

This suggested syllabus is based on two years of preparation, experimentation, and feedback. MDDSA members are encouraged to volunteer to work collectively on any topic. Our meetings are open to all members, and we meet twice a month, alternating between in person and online to accommodate differing schedules and availabilities.

Committing to a syllabus does not mean Pol Ed can’t also do other things. We have an amendment that allows for flexibility should the horrors of life in the twenty-first century demand our attention (as they so often do these days). We have Red Squares open to a wide variety of topics, and the ability to run as many as membership-power allows. We have an on-going organizing school where members can learn a wide-variety of organizing skills.

And because the basics of socialism form the building blocks for every socialist campaign, they are inherently related to the work that we do in the world and can be continually tailored to meet the moment. We need deep conversations, repeated over time with new and old members, about systematic forms of oppression (racism, patriarchy, and capitalism) because those conversations inform our strategy in our campaigns, projects, and workplaces. Socialists must be strategic in order to make real systemic change. It is through conversations about the basics that we can start to recognize the systems we are fighting.

Amanda Matyas is co-chair of Detroit DSA’s Political Education Committee. She is also a member of the national Bread & Roses caucus and the local Democracy Coalition, a new self-organized, cross-tendency formation.

Political Education at our Monthly General Meetings was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By: Francesca S.

The general meeting is the most well attended event that Detroit DSA hosts, and is an opportunity to engage with the broadest swath of our active membership. We only have two hours a month to engage our membership as a whole, and it’s important to use that time wisely.

I’m presenting R8, “General Body Meetings: A Scalable, Balanced Model for a Growing MD-DSA” to establish a formal structure for meetings with time divided into three blocks: political education, working group updates, and campaigns. This plan allows us to agree on a path forward that prioritizes the work of winning socialism.

The past few years have been a time of unprecedented growth for MD-DSA. Our chapter has doubled in size, and greatly expanded our scope of work and our internal structure. Denzel McCampbell’s city council victory has mainstream news outlets talking about democratic socialism. For the first time in years, DSA is a political force to be reckoned with. Our largest meeting should reflect that by dedicating the agenda to the work that we are doing. Our members come to the general meeting because they want to get involved in our projects. We should be giving them that opportunity every month.

Political education at the general meeting should give members context for the work we are doing as a chapter, which is why R8 dedicates 30 minutes to it. A shorter time frame makes the lectures more digestible and avoids overly broad topics. The shorter time also makes it easier to pivot when the national conversation changes due to rapid movement in current events. Long lectures on theoretical topics are best suited to standalone events, not as one agenda item in a meeting about the work of the entire chapter.

R8 also dedicates 30 minutes to updates from committees and working groups, so that members can get a complete picture of the work that our chapter is doing (and that our dues are funding). General meeting presentations are a great way for working groups to recruit new members, or announce upcoming events.

This block could also be a good time to do skills training that relates to different areas of organizing. For example, electoral could talk about how to get a valid petition signature. Labor working group could talk about how to agitate your coworkers into taking action against the boss. Ecosocialists could explain the state of public transit in Detroit. Our work is multifaceted, and our general meeting should be too.

R8 sets aside the largest amount of time, 60 minutes, to discussing endorsed campaigns. This could be updates on existing campaigns, or debate on resolutions proposing new ones. The campaign endorsement process is the most democratic way to do work in DSA. Campaigns are first presented at the general meeting, then there is a deliberative process where members can propose amendments. After debate with equal time given to each side, the endorsement is voted on by the entire membership.

Dedicating the most time to endorsed campaigns ensures that we are giving equal consideration to all areas of chapter work because every group is able to bring an endorsed campaign. It also incentivizes the use of the campaigns process, which prompts organizers to think critically about the scope and feasibility of their project, a plan for action, and how to get buy-in from the membership.

Please come to convention on April 11th, and vote yes on R8. Let’s continue this momentum and turn DSA into the political home for the working class.

Francesca has been a member of Metro Detroit DSA since 2019. She currently serves as chapter secretary. She is a member of Groundwork.

Why We Need A Scalable, Balanced Model for a Growing MD-DSA was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Popular education is a method of teaching that centers the voices of students starting from their unique perspectives and situations.

The post How to use popular education to build worker power appeared first on EWOC.

DSA’s mass politics make it the only real political party in the United States.

The post It’s a Party in the USA appeared first on Democratic Left.

In 1988 and 2016, DSA backed insurgent primary campaigns by gifted outsiders — but the aftermath of the Jesse Jackson and the Bernie Sanders campaigns were very different.

The post Why Wasn’t There a Long Jackson Moment? appeared first on Democratic Left.

You’ve probably received enough communications regarding this Saturday’s “No Kings” demonstrations, which will be held all across the country. At last count more than three thousand demonstrations are being organized, and there will no doubt be at least one near you.

In case you have been procrastinating, here is a link to find the demonstrations closest to you.

The first of these demos last June had a million or two people attend. The next one, in October, had at least five million. We’re aiming to double that this time, which would put us in striking distance of the 3.5% of the US population that research says is necessary to topple authoritarian regimes in the making. 

Against the backdrop of brutal anti-immigrant violence and preparation for election suppression at home, and clueless trade policy matched with deadly wars abroad, a growing number of Americans are coming out to the streets. These include people who have never been politically involved outside of voting every few years, and progressives who sat out the 2024 presidential elections because they didn’t think there was any difference between the two parties and the two candidates. Within DSA and the rest of the left this often took the form of denouncing the “twin parties of capital”. Which they are. But that picture, drawn without nuance, underestimated what fascism is and does.

Now we know. 

A reasonable question at this point is, ‘What sort of message should socialists be sending to the other demonstrators, and the world, a year into America’s fascist descent?’ You have the opportunity to weigh in on that as you make your protest sign. “No Kings” is a start, not a program. “Workers Over Billionaires” moves us closer to the ideas we need.

This mass demonstration of opposition is absolutely necessary, but not sufficient to stop MAGA from dragging us along on its road to hell. For that we need to be broadening the struggle with other tactics and strategies (mutual aid, mass strikes, non-violent direct action, and electoral politics) that build a powerful anti-fascist movement and lay the basis for moving past the failed politics of the past. What happened in Minneapolis/St. Paul on January 23—‘No Work, No School, No Shopping’—is the best example so far. DSA has joined with labor and community partners in the May Day Strong coalition, which understands “No Kings” as a step toward a sharper critique of capitalism on May 1. On that day we will see how prepared we are to advance beyond a nationwide demonstration to a national movement.

We’ll see you out in the streets this weekend. And then we’ll continue to train and educate and prepare ourselves for the struggle ahead.

In the February issue of California Red we ran a background article on the California DSA campaign we call “The Fair and Responsible Tax Plan for California’s Wealthy”, which embraces both measures currently gathering signatures to qualify for the November state ballot. That was the first in a series we are running between now and the election. Here is the next installment.—Editor

The unfathomably vast yet still growing level of California’s economic inequality

Our East Bay DSA crew of five had planted ourselves in the parking lot of a supermarket in North Berkeley on a warm mid-March afternoon. We were collecting signatures for the Billionaires Tax and the Protecting Education and Health Care Act. During our three-hour shift we did not do badly, gathering several dozen for each measure. Even better were the conversations, which ranged from informing voters about the nuts and bolts of the proposals to broader questions about economic inequality: how much money do billionaires have, anyway? What share of the total income of California, the fifth largest economy in the world, goes to the one percent? What would be the right amount of taxes for them to pay? And how do we get them to pay their fair share? 

We explore a few of these ideas and numbers below.

A cool million

It used to be hard for the typical working class stiff to imagine what a million dollars looks like. A million dollars? That’s what millionaires have, and I’m not even close to being one of those, we would say. But that was before a million dollars or thereabouts became the average price of a house in Los Angeles. It’s slightly below that statewide, and slightly above that in San Francisco. But you get the idea. Generally speaking, if you can afford a home, you know what a million dollars looks like—it looks like your house. (If you’re a renter, it looks like that house.)

A billion dollars was even more unfathomable. We didn’t have many in the United States until relatively recently; as late as 1990 there were just 66 of them. Now there are close to a thousand, and we’ve got 213 right here in the Golden State. Since we know that a million dollars looks like a house these days, we can imagine that since a billion is a thousand millions, it would look like a thousand houses. 

No one needs a thousand houses to live in, so most billionaires scrape by with just ten or twelve. Of course, being billionaires, they need somewhat larger houses than most people, so they might spend five or ten million dollars or even more—fifty million! A hundred million!—on their humble abodes. If they owned ten of those, that could put a pretty big dent in their billion dollar fortune. But guess what? The average wealth of a billionaire is not a billion dollars. It’s currently around 8.6 billion dollars, according to inequality.org. So that would be 8,600 houses. 

Minus the dozen they “live” in, that would leave them with enough money to purchase 8,588 more houses. I don’t know about you, but as the numbers climb my ability to translate the million dollar house into a clear image of the wealth of billionaires is beginning to get somewhat unequal to the task. And that’s before we try to imagine what the total wealth of 213 billionaires looks like. 

Trillions

It is reliably estimated that thanks to the ginormous growth of their fortunes during the past ten years (Trump I’s tax cuts, pandemic economy when there was nothing to invest in except stock buybacks, Trump II’s continuing tax cuts, massive AI bubble, and outright looting of public resources) our couple hundred California billionaires collectively own (hold onto your “tax the rich” baseball cap) two trillion dollars’ worth of assets. In California they’re doing a little better than the average 8.6 billionaire; they’ve each got around 9.4 billion. 

Although I just said I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around the houses when they added up to the average 8,600 houses each (adjusted now to 9,400), let’s try it out with trillions. That’s a thousand billions. So collectively our 213 ultra-rich people with their two trillion dollars would have, let’s see, carry the one, a bit over 1.8 million houses, at a million dollars each. 

You might think that that’s enough for anyone, and these individuals must be looking around for philanthropies to unload to. But no, according to a recent New York Times article, billionaire giving has fallen precipitously in the last few years as their ‘uneasy accommodation with fascism’ (fascism scholar Robert Paxton’s formulation describing the initial response of economic elites to the uncouth new political rulers) has grown considerably less uneasy—more like downright comfortable. The 213 billionaires in California have seen their total wealth grow by nearly a third in this period as the rest of us have been essentially running in place—and that’s not enough for some of them. 

If you listen to one of their loudest mouthpieces, tech mogul Ron Conway, the proposed billionaire tax is not only bad for his 212 other peeps; it’s way worse than that. He was recently quoted in a New York Times article with a sentiment that inadvertently revealed how that kind of bank account can warp one’s perspective: According to Mr. Conway, referring to the billionaire tax, “This is the greatest tragedy this state has ever felt.” Hmmm. I wonder whether the families of dozens of people who lost their lives and thousands who lost homes in the Eaton and Palisades fires in 2025 agree? Or if Japanese-Californians, 93,000 of whom were incarcerated during World War II, share that view? Or if Native Californians, whose population fell from a third a million people in 1800 to about 15,000 by 1910 during the genocide that did them in, would agree with Conway’s historical research? 

On the other hand

At the other end of the economic spectrum, California’s borders contain about 7 million people below the official poverty line, or 18% of its roughly 40 million people. But the official federal poverty line ($33,000/year for a family of four) is laughably (that’s probably the wrong word) below an actual ability to live. One measure of how many people are barely getting by in California is the number of MediCal recipients, dependent on the federal Medicaid funding stream for most of their care costs. Although California is a net donor to the federal treasury, it does rely on $20 billion per year from the feds to support MediCal. Some 15 million Californians are enrolled in MediCal.

Let’s move on from the tiny extremely rich and the very large poor slices of the state and look at the condition of the merely rich, the top 1% income earners, which includes the billionaires but extends downward to the merely well-to-do. Although calculations vary, the bottom rung of the ladder for a one percenter is just about a million dollars a year in income; the median merely rich, right in the middle of the one percent, is $3.6 million a year. Here’s chart to help us visualize how their share of total California income has grown over the past half century. 

That’s right, believe your eyes. The top 1%’s share of income in the Golden State has grown over the past half century from about one twelfth of total income to almost one third. Richest state in the richest country in the world? Yes, but a vast chunk of the riches seems to have ended up in the pockets of people who didn’t need the transfer. 

On the third hand, if all of the state’s total income had been divided up equally, every person in California in 2024 would have received around $80,000—which means that for a family of four, combining their incomes, the household would have had $320,000—just a little under ten times the official poverty line.  

“But that would be socialism!” cry the billionaires, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and probably quite a few temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Well, sort of. We’ll get into that some other time. One thing is clear: it would certainly be different from what we’ve got.