As billionaires’ wealth soars, US workers struggle: ‘The rich keep getting richer for no good reason’

People protest against the SpaceX IPO outside JPMorgan Chase in New York City on 12 June 2026. Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPAView image in fullscreenPeople protest against the SpaceX IPO outside JPMorgan Chase in New York City on 12 June 2026. Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPAUS income inequalityAs billionaires’ wealth soars, US workers struggle: ‘The rich keep getting richer for no good reason’Ultrarich face backlash as billionaire tax in California makes it to the ballot and Americans organize for higher wages

The day that Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, Gilberto Rubio, a security officer in the San Francisco area, said he was thinking about how to cut back on meals to save money.

Jessica Ordeñana, a bartender in midtown Manhattan, was worrying about air conditioning ahead of a heatwave because she can’t afford her soaring electricity bills.

Ordeñana and Rubio are just two of the millions of workers in the US struggling to make ends meet in an economy in which inflation has wiped out recent gains in wage growth and consumer confidence is at an all-time low, even as wealth has surged for the ultrarich.

On Thursday, California’s controversial billionaire tax measure officially made it to the ballot after an expensive and hard-fought campaign that saw some of the world’s richest people pour millions into efforts to derail the effort. That fight will now continue until November’s general election, with Silicon Valley expected to spend even more money to prevent the measure from passing.

The wealthiest 0.00001%, about 20 individuals, hold wealth equal to 12% of the US’s gross domestic output, according to data compiled by the French economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, about four times greater than levels seen during the gilded age.

Musk lost his trillionaire status on Wednesday. It dipped below the threshold as investors soured on AI. But he has still added $327bn to his fortune in the last 12 months alone. A stock market rally would soon push him back over the top and bring his cohort up with him.

The rise in Musk’s extraordinary wealth – up from about $28bn in 2020 to now close to $1tn – was cemented by SpaceX’s stock market listing. More millionaires and billionaires will be minted in the coming months as SpaceX’s share sale is followed by offerings from AI rivals Anthropic and OpenAI.

The US is home to 989 billionaires. They owned more than $9.2tn in wealth in 2026, up 31.8% since 2025, according to a report by Americans for Tax Fairness.

And as the billionaires’ wealth has soared, workers in the US are falling behind.

In 2025, US workers took their smallest share of gross domestic product on record since 1947, falling to 53.8% of GDP in the third quarter.

The US inflation rate hit 4.2% in May 2026, wiping out 3.4% in wage growth for the past year.