This measure is sold as help for transit riders, many of whom are low-income. But the tax that pays for it lands hardest on the same working families and renters, whether they ride or not. That is not a quirk of this measure. It is how every sales tax works.
An income tax rises with what you earn. A sales tax does the opposite: it falls on what you spend, and lower-income households have to spend nearly every dollar they bring in. A family living paycheck to paycheck spends almost all of its income on taxable goods, so almost all of its income is exposed to the tax. A high earner spends only a fraction and saves or invests the rest, and the saved portion is never taxed at the register at all.
The result is a tax that takes a far bigger bite, measured against income, from the bottom than from the top. Economists call this regressive, and of the major taxes governments use, consumption taxes like the sales tax are the most regressive of all. A half-cent looks the same on every receipt, but it does not weigh the same on every household.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy measured what households at every income level actually pay in sales and excise taxes, as a share of their income. The figures below are national averages, not California-specific estimates, but the pattern they capture holds for any sales tax. The gap is not subtle.
Share of income paid in state and local sales and excise taxes by the bottom 20 percent of households, on average nationwide.
The middle 20 percent pay almost five times the rate of the wealthiest as a share of their income.
The highest earners pay roughly one percent of their income, because they spend only a small share of what they make.
A working family pays close to seven times as much of its income in these taxes as a millionaire household does.
| Income group | Share of income paid in sales & excise taxes |
|---|---|
| Lowest 20 percent | 7.0% |
| Middle 20 percent | 4.8% |
| Top 1 percent | 1.0% |
A half-cent increase adds five dollars in tax for every thousand dollars of taxable purchases; in San Francisco, where the increase is a full cent, it is ten dollars per thousand. A household that spends roughly $20,000 a year on taxable goods, cars and taxable repair parts, clothing, furniture, appliances, restaurant meals, would pay about $100 more each year, and about $200 more in San Francisco.
For a high-income household the same increase is a rounding error against its budget. For a family already stretched by Bay Area rents and grocery bills, it is one more recurring cost on purchases it cannot avoid, and it arrives with no rebate, no exemption, and no way to opt out. The dollar figures may look modest; as a share of a tight household budget, they are not.
It is, and that matters. California already exempts most grocery food, prescription medicines, children's diapers, and menstrual hygiene products from sales tax. Those exemptions soften the blow, and they are exactly why this tax is not even more regressive than it is.
But they do not erase the problem. The measured burden above already counts exemptions like these, and the gap is still close to seven to one. Many everyday household purchases remain taxable, including clothing and school supplies, furniture and appliances, restaurant meals, cleaning supplies, toiletries, a used car and its taxable repair parts, and many over-the-counter medicines. Lower-income households spend a larger share of their income on precisely these taxable necessities, which is why the tax reaches them hardest even with food off the list.
California's overall tax system avoids being lopsided mainly because of its progressive income tax and credits like the CalEITC, which give money back to lower-income working families. Those are the tools that counterbalance the regressive pull of the sales tax.
A regional transit sales tax brings none of that. It is a single flat rate added on top, with no graduated brackets, no low-income credit, and no rebate for the households it burdens most. It pushes the system in the regressive direction and offers nothing to pull it back. And it stacks onto some of the highest sales tax rates in California: this measure would push seven Alameda County cities past 11 percent.
Sources: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All Fifty States (7th edition, 2024); California Department of Tax and Fee Administration on sales and use tax exemptions; measure terms per SB 63 (Wiener, 2025). Combined-rate figures are drawn from the city lookup on the home page.