Morris Pearl
Age: 62
Home: Manhattan’s Upper East Side
Pearl retired from BlackRock Inc. in 2014 after a decades-long career in finance that made him a “high seven-, low eight-figure” fortune. Pearl, the group’s chairman and one of its first members, lives on Park Avenue just a few blocks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Why did you join?
So I could actually do something and feel I was a part of something and actually feel like I’m making a difference, as opposed to sending a big check to whomever and getting to meet Nancy Pelosi once a year.

What’s the appeal of paying more taxes?
It’s not that I personally want to pay more money. I can give away all my money if I wanted to. It’s that the growing inequality in our country is bad. We’re moving in a direction where there’s a few rich people and lots of poor people. That will lessen the possibility of having a middle class of storekeepers and professionals and doctors and lawyers and people like that who really are the bedrock of our economy.

What about philanthropy?
It doesn’t take the place of government funding. It’s not that hard to raise money for a new music hall at Lincoln Center. It’s much more difficult to raise money to build a new sewage treatment plant at 143rd Street.

Charlie Simmons
Age: 71
Home: Los Altos Hills, California
Simmons, a long-time Bay Area resident, retired almost 20 years ago as vice president of corporate development for a computer storage company and became an angel investor. He won’t say how much he’s worth because his wife would “freak out,” but said he has “well over $5 million.” He lives in a Silicon Valley suburb and joined the group soon after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.

Why should rich people like yourself pay more taxes?
We have to fund programs to bring the bottom up and even some of the middle class needs help and that’s going to take a lot of money. We’re the ones who can afford it. I’d much rather live in a country that has much more equality and have my net worth reduced—it doesn’t change my lifestyle.

How would you do it?
I think the top rate can be higher on me and others. We’ve had it well over 70% before and survived as a country. At least it could be somewhere between 50% and 70%. And tax capital gains at the same rate.

What would you want the extra money spent on?
Universal Medicare. We have to admit the areas where capitalism doesn’t work, and medicine is one. Education is another.

Stephen Prince
Age: 68
Home: Brentwood, Tennessee
Prince developed many of his political beliefs growing up in the small town of Waycross, Georgia, during the Civil Rights era. He’s since started various businesses—a plastic card printing business, computer imaging business—and built a $40 million fortune, including about $25 million in cash from two stake sales last year. He spoke by phone while vacationing on the Big Island of Hawaii.

How did your childhood influence your political views?
I was very supportive of the Civil Rights movement as a kid. I was pretty rare in that regard, being a white kid from the South. I mean most of my friends were racist and had no desire whatsoever to balance the ground. For some reason, I came out on the other side of that.