Finance

Bezos Says Lower-Income Americans Shouldn’t Pay Taxes

May 20, 2026

Bezos, who founded Amazon, says lower-income Americans shouldn’t pay taxes.

In an example involving a “nurse in Queens,” Bezos questioned the present system of income taxation.

“Something powerful about zero,” the billionaire said on CNBC.

“The richest guy in America, Jeff Bezos, just came up with a pretty revolutionary idea: low-income Americans should pay no taxes at all,” the billionaire said.

Bezos Calls For Zero Taxes On Lower-Income Americans

“I believe it should be zero. One percent of taxpayers earn 40% of the tax revenue. The bottom half earns only 3%. There’s something very powerful about zero,” Bezos said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday.

“It’s something powerful about zero.”

As Bezos talked about his criticism of the taxation of low-income workers, he made an example of “a nurse in Queens earning $75,000.”

While speaking on the phone from his Blue Origin rocket launch facility in Florida, Bezos stated that in 2026, the United States will be a tale of two economies.

“You have some people in this country who are doing very well, and you have some people in this country who are struggling,” said Bezos.

This was a clear reference to the currently existing K-shaped economy, in which a lot of American citizens have become richer owing to the prolonged growth of stock markets and real estate values in recent times, whereas others have struggled with high levels of inflation, high interest rates, and affordability problems.

Bezos Uses a Nurse in Queens as an Example

“Some talk about making our tax system more progressive,” Bezos continued. “What do you say to having the nurse in Queens not paying any taxes at all?”

“How can a nurse in Queens earn $75,000 a year and pay more than $1,000 in taxes each month? What would she use this money for — to pay for rent, food, or something else?”

Then Bezos gave the example of taxing the income of an Amazon employee in New York earning about $50,000 per year, and called it “absurd”.

“Why should you tax them so much? I really am confused.”

When later asked about the possibility of introducing a universal basic income, Bezos again came back to his “nurse in Queens”.

“What if, instead of universal basic income, we stop taxing a nurse making $75,000 per year?”

According to data published on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, the median annual wage for a registered nurse working in New York, Newark, and Jersey City is approximately $120,000, while for vocational nurses, whose educational level is normally lower, it’s around $75,000.

Bezos’ Personal Taxes

Bezos’ remarks came in the middle of intense discussions over the introduction of a billionaire tax in California aimed at raising additional funding needed to compensate federal cuts to healthcare coverage for low-income Americans.

A 5% one-time tax would be imposed on their worldwide net worth, including stocks, artworks, business property, and cars but not directly owned real estate.

As of Tuesday, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Bezos was the wealthiest man in the world worth $279 billion.

Bezos’ wealth mainly includes an 8% stake in Amazon, the world’s largest online marketplace and cloud computing platform with the market cap of $2.8 trillion as of Tuesday.

Many billionaires have long been blamed for avoiding paying taxes and not giving their employees decent salaries. According to the reports based on the data from Bezos’ tax return leaked to ProPublica, in 2007 an 2011, Bezos did not pay federal income tax despite already being a billionaire.

“If people want to make me pay billions extra, let’s do that, but let’s not pretend that that’s going to make things easier for that teacher in Queens. You can double my taxes, and I assure you it won’t help,” Bezos told CNBC.

Bezos has previously highlighted the value created by him for the society. In the last shareholder letter sent by him as CEO, Bezos stated that in 2020, Amazon created $301 billion in economic value for shareholders, employees, third-party sellers, and customers.