This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Victoria Hattersley, a 70-year-old millionaire who lives in Mount Vernon, Washington, about the state’s proposed millionaire tax. The bill would create a 9.9% tax on income earned over $1 million. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
We didn’t have a lot of money when I was a kid. I lived in Trumbull, Connecticut, which was a more affluent town, but we weren’t the affluent people.
My friends were going shopping at the really fancy mall, and I had to go to the discount stores, so I didn’t grow up with money.
I got married very young, had children young, and was in some difficult circumstances for several years. I even ended up having to go to food banks. So I understand hard that is and how stressful that kind of living is.
I started my career in Boston when I moved back to be with my family. I was able to leverage some of the experience that I had back in Washington and started working at the AIDS Clinical Trials Group at the Harvard School of Public Health.
I worked in AIDS research and eventually met my husband — my last and most wonderful husband — he was the head of the biostatistics group at the statistical and data analysis center who did the clinical trials for AIDS research. I was on the admin side.
We got married, and both of us had kids, so we needed a higher level of income than what academia could afford. We both went to the pharmaceutical industry, where I had a 20-year career — he had a longer career because he went over there first.
With stock options in the pharma industry, you make money, you invest it, and then you make money on the investments. The stock market’s been very kind, and so that’s where we made our wealth.
I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, but not everyone should have to
I’ve been at both ends of the spectrum, financially.
Becoming a millionaire is definitely not as simple as pulling yourself up and just doing the hard work. There’s so much else that factors in — including a lot of luck. I got lucky.
It makes me mad when people say, “Well, I did it, so you can.”
I used to have that same attitude. Then, when I was going through life, gaining more experience, seeing very capable people try and try and work hard at getting jobs, and the jobs aren’t there, or they’re not recognized for this or that for whatever reason, I realized it’s definitely not that simple.
Nobody doesn’t want to be well off.
People should be able to get wealthy — there’s nothing wrong with that. The thing is, just pay your fair share of taxes. That’s the bottom line.
Society and culture are better off when people are doing well, when people can work and they can have healthcare and have their kids go to daycare. When that happens, they produce more and that produces more taxes for what we need to do.
It’s just a healthier way of structuring society than holding people down and taxing people into poverty, while people at the very high end are not contributing their share.
The new bill in my state would only affect less than 1% of residents
Washington has one of the most regressive tax codes in the country. It impacts lower-income folks more than higher-income folks. They pay a higher share of their money because of the tax structure. Plus, those with more money have more opportunities to hire financial advisors who can help them find tax loopholes, and so on.
The new legislation in Washington is a 9.9% tax on income — not under stocks or anything — over $1 million a year starting in 2028, and then the first payments would be in 2029.
It’s only less than 1% of people in Washington state who would be subject to this.
I recognize that as you gain more wealth, you keep looking around the corner saying, “Oh, if I had more, I could do this. I don’t want to lose any of my money because I’m already looking at this new thing.”
I believe it is a syndrome of excessive wealth disorder. There are a lot of conversations around this.
Everyone will benefit from the wealthy paying their fair share
I’ve been volunteering in the democracy space for many years prior to retirement.
I work in the democracy ecosystem space and transpartisan space, trying to strengthen our civic engagement across the country with a couple of different organizations doing that, as well as with the Patriotic Millionaires in my volunteer work.
I just believe that there is excessive wealth, and it’s getting worse — it’s only going to get worse in very quick fashion.
Our inequality is so drastic. We look back at history, and we see that this is where cultural instability, social instability, and economic instability happen — and it’s not healthy, and there are no barriers.
I think a lot of people who are wealthy just can’t conceive this kind of life where you’re trying to take care of your kids, you’re working jobs, you’re just trying to pay the bills.
That’s all most people want to do; they want to pay their bills. They would love to own a home. They’d like to maybe take a vacation, or they want to put their kids in a decent daycare. The stress level of not knowing if you’re going to be able to pay your rent, your car note, or your heat is awful.
Why are we taxing people into a place where it’s impossible for them to get out of the situation they’re in?
We can see the impact of the excessive wealth inequality that’s happening in our society, and it’s very dangerous for all of us.
What the bill would do would be to provide people perhaps with some tax holidays and help small businesses. The governor is very clear: We need to put money back into people’s pockets.
This is not something that is just important for individuals. It is important for individuals, but it’s also important for everyone: for our entire society, for our country, that we address this inequality, because it can’t continue. We will have significant societal and cultural impacts.
I’m just passionate about helping the people who want to do well.
It’s just the right thing to do.
