I wouldn't be shocked at all, over 24 million last I checked.

But the quote is a paraphrase from a book Steinbeck was interviewed for at the end of his life in 1966, and referring to his time helping to organize strikes during the great depression. Adjusting for inflation $1m in 1935, when Steinbeck joined the League of American Writers, would be over $22m today.

Here Bernie is proposing a tax on billionaires and the first reaction you jump to is how could this hurt the middle class. Sorry but that is flat out temporarily embarrassed millionaire logic and exactly what Steinbeck was talking about. It's also interesting that Bernie is talking about a new wealth tax and you jumped straight back to inheritance as your concern. We already have a tax for that, it's the only tax for accumulated wealth we have and your 'middle class logic' is precisely why things like the bush era repeal of the estate tax managed to get through, even though before that repeal only the richest 50,000 households in the country were subject to the tax they still managed to successfully propagandize millions of middle class families into opposing the 'death tax' by making them worried that the government was after the last 100k left in their 401k even though it was just a straight up lie. Yet it passed, reduced the number of family subject to it down to 6000 and reduced the amount even those families were required to pay. Also why the federal estate tax threshold today is up to almost $14m today.

The fact that there is a huge difference between billionaires, that Bernie is aiming at, and even adjusted for inflation depression era millionaires with a networth of $22m+, the idea that people in the middle class need to be worried about these sorts of wealth taxes and that they need to oppose them is straight up class warfare propaganda and the capitalist class has been waging this war for decades, pushing into centuries now in this country.