The Guardian reports:

The collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires has soared by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America published on Monday on the growing wealth divide.

The report warns that Trump administration policies risk driving US inequality to new heights, but points out that both Republican and Democratic administrations have exacerbated the US’s growing wealth gap.

Using Federal Reserve data from 1989 to 2022, researchers also calculated that the top 1% of households gained 101 times more wealth than the median household during that time span and 987 times the wealth of a household at the bottom 20th percentile of income. This translated to a gain of $8.35m per household for the top 1% of households, compared with $83,000 for the average household during that 33-year period.

Meanwhile, over 40% of the US population, including nearly 50% of children, are considered low-income, with family earnings that are less than 200% of the national poverty line.

When pitting the US against 38 other higher-income countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US has the highest rate of relative poverty, second-highest rate of child poverty and infant mortality, and the second-lowest life expectancy rate.

“Inequality is a policy choice,” said Rebecca Riddell, senior policy lead for economic justice at Oxfam America. “These comparisons show us that we can make very different choices when it comes to poverty and inequality in our society.” [Continue reading…]