From housing to healthcare and utilities to groceries, rising prices are increasingly making Americans feel burdened by the cost of living.
At the same time, the ultra-rich are getting richer, widening the gap between the wealthy and the working class.
That worsening equality has been buoyed by the Trump administration. Federal policies like his “One Big Beautiful Bill” have cut taxes for corporations and the ultra-rich while slashing social services like Medicaid.
But states have started fighting back. In the 2026 legislative session alone, lawmakers from at least 19 states have introduced more than 100 bills that look to rein in rampant wealth hoarding, as well as the runaway cost of living.
And states are uniquely positioned, organizers say, to take action in this moment, particularly through tax laws that could redistribute wealth.
Bills that address tax policies
That 100-plus tally isn’t even a complete count of the effort, says Ida Eskamani, senior director of the State Innovation Exchange’s economic justice initiative. State Innovation Exchange, or SiX, works with state legislators across the country to advance policies that benefit the working class.
The bills that SiX has tracked so far are a highlight, Eskamani says, of the states where the organization has been particularly hands-on with legislators.
“It’s only February,” she told Fast Company last week. “We expect many more, and we continue to see momentum.”
The proposed bills all focus on tax policy as the tool to address wealth inequality. In some cases, they are straightforward wealth taxes, similar to the Millionaires Tax that passed in Massachusetts in 2022—and which has become a leading example of how progressive tax policies can generate revenue that funds education, transit, and more.
In Washington, for example, lawmakers have proposed a 9.9% tax on income above $1 million. In Illinois, lawmakers are considering a resolution to put an additional 3% tax on income that exceeds $1 million. A Connecticut bill would implement a 1.75% surcharge on capital gains for individuals earning over $1 million.
In other instances, the proposed bills would adjust tax laws to address other hot-button political issues, from removing tax breaks for Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractors (as proposed in California), or repealing tax exemptions for data centers (as in Maryland).
“The affordability crisis is not an accident”
Though they differ, what all these proposed bills have in common is that they leverage states’ power around tax law to course-correct a trend that lawmakers, union members, and other organizers say has been continuing for too long: that corporations and the super-wealthy have not been paying their “fair share” back to society.
“The affordability crisis is not an accident,” Eskamani says. “It’s the result of intentional policy choices that protect concentrated wealth over working families. And so we’ve seen a system of ‘trickle down’ economics that rewards wealth hoarding and punishes hard working people.”
Wealth inequality has surged in recent decades. Between 1989 and 2022, U.S, households in the top 1% gained at least 101 times more wealth than the median household, according to Oxfam—and at least 987 times more than households in the bottom 20%.
That disparity hasn’t slowed down. In 2025 alone, America’s top 15 billionaires got $1 trillion richer, while everyday Americans struggled with mounting affordability concerns.
Trump is exacerbating these issues, experts say. His “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” or HR1, gave $1 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 1% over a decade. It cuts federal Medicaid funding by about the same amount in that time.
That policy “leaves states to pick up the bill,” Eskamani says. “And so in this crisis, there’s a necessity for states to lead on taxes.”
Some states have already seen wins by simply rejecting some HR1 tax cuts. States can choose not to follow certain federal tax rules through a process called “decoupling.” Idaho has declined to adopt some of the biggest corporate tax cuts in that bill, and Florida’s state legislature has indicated it won’t go along with many, either.
A “real affordability agenda”
By passing new wealth and corporate taxes, states can fill gaps in their funding that emerge from these federal policies.
But more than that, they also have the chance to “build something better,” Eskamani says. She points to New Mexico’s first-in-the-nation move to offer universal no-cost childcare as an example of what states can do to improve working families’ lives.
That’s just one example. This week, May Day Strong, a coalition of legislators, unions, and community advocates (including SiX), released a guidebook for what it calls “the real affordability agenda.”
That guidebook serves as a blueprint for how to propose and pass state-level policies that tackle affordability.
It includes adjusting taxes, but also includes ways to ensure good-paying jobs through higher minimum wages and better worker protections; how to reign in housing costs, like via bans on rent gouging and expanded tenant rights; and policies that provide families with what they need, from childcare to healthcare.
At a press conference launching that report, state legislators like Jason Lewis, who was the lead state Senate sponsor for Massachusetts’s Millionaires Tax, spoke alongside labor leaders like Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union.
According to Eskamani, the guidebook isn’t just for lawmakers to follow. It also provides a map for activists, unions, and community organizations to get involved and advocate for changes.
“We’re up against some of the most powerful corporations and billionaires in the world,” she says. “The legislators working in collaboration with folks organizing and everyday people and their constituents is key to this, because the only way we can defeat this lawless class of billionaires is by building people power.”